By Milo Schield
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To better meet the needs of today’s college students, the 2024 GAISE update should acknowledge the need for and the teaching of three "flavors" of introductory statistics. College students can be classified into three groups: Those in non-quantitative majors (consumers, 40%), those in quantitative majors that don't need programming skills (analysts, 45%) and those in majors or courses that involve programming skills (producers15%). The idea that a single introductory statistics course can satisfy the quantitative needs of these three groups of students seems hopelessly idealistic. By acknowledging these differences in college students, the guidelines can make targeted recommendations for each group. Here is one suggestion for the three different flavors of introductory statistics: Stat 100 Statistical Literacy, Stat 101 Traditional (Formulaic or "Normal") Statistics, and Stat 102 Data Science Statistics. Stat100 (Statistical Literacy, 10%) would focus on everyday (observational) statistics, multivariate thinking, confounding and "taking into account" using simple techniques as shown in the 2016 GAISE update. Stat 101(Traditional or "Normal Statistics", 80%) would focus on using analytic models to analyze random variation, confidence intervals, p-values and statistical significance. This course has been taught worldwide since the 1950s. Stat 102 (Data Science Statistics, 10%) would focus on using computers to produce, manipulate and summarize data, and on using computer simulation to generate statistical summaries and inference.