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  • When the Federal Law of Education in Argentine (1994) changed the curriculum of schools, statistics contents were introduced in the initial level (from 3 to 5 years), in the E.G.B. (from 6 to 15 years) and in the Polimodal (from 15 to 18 years). It was necessary to prepare teachers in statistics as they never have this signature in their curriculum. In this paper I will show how all this process is taking place in Argentine. In the universities, it depends on the careers, but with the curriculum changes, the purpose is to introduce courses of statistics not only on the grade careers, but also in the masters courses.

  • Some examples from the teaching proposal, elaborated by us, for the subject "Statistical and Numerical Methods" (SNM) are presented. SNM is an optional course in the last year of High School in Galicia (Spain). More specifically, we are concerned with the introduction of some new concepts at this teaching level in the Galician education system, namely, Markov chains, statistical inference and time series.

  • This paper describes a website containing information on textbooks for the introductory, applied statistics course. After an explanation of the rationale for such a site it lists the general education and business and economics textbooks on the site followed by characteristics of each text on the site. It concludes with future possibilities for such a site.

  • The document presented here, called "Análisis Multidimensional de Datos" in Spanish ("Multidimensional Data Analysis") is geared toward engineering students in Mexico, Latin America, and Spain. It shows all the theory of data analysis, starting with a biographical sketch of its historical development and how data are organized. It deals with the theory of factorial analysis and scalograms, beginning with establishing information management. A large variety of applications with actual data are presented throughout the text, and a set of programs is furnished that can be implemented easily in a personal computer. The related software is listed at the end.

  • Transition to a market economy has generated increasing importance of both data and analytical statistical tools for business and government. Profound economic reforms changed the underestimated role of statistics under central planning and evidenced the need to use it more actively as basis for carrying out national policy and strategies in all economic sectors. In addition the process of accession of Bulgaria to the European Union requires the harmonization of legislation concerned with statistics and compliance of basic statistical surveys with the EU standards and the main EU policies. As a result during the last 10 years noticeable changes in the organization and methodology of official statistics took place in Bulgaria. This process has been facilitated by the advances in Information Technology (IT). The IT revolution and the Internet in particular has greatly increased the feasibility of easy communication of huge data sets at all levels of summary and enriches the opportunities to apply the sophisticated tools associated with large data sets.

  • In the paper we propose some educational standards for modal value and random sample. Those standards should facilitate deeper understanding of these statistical notions.

  • Statistics South Africa is the official supplier of statistics for the South African government. It supplies various types of statistics to government departments, industry, financial houses as well as economic and developmental planners. Being an organisation where many subject experts are employed and where transfer of knowledge takes place, it is only natural to see that the quality of the organisation lies in its people and in the continual development of people's skills. SAS is the most widely used data management and statistical tool, especially in social and economic statistics. Training is provided as part of a well defined development plan that each employee has in terms of their position. Most of the training deals with data management and data manipulation as well as statistical analysis. It is intended that as people learn more that people will want to know more and the stage has been reached where features such as SQL and Macro Language amongst others are being trained. Training of Statistics can therefore take place with SAS being used as an analytical tool. Products such as SAS Analyst and Enterprise Guide allow the instructor to practically demonstrate the application of statistical techniques. Various different statistical procedures can be performed from simple descriptive statistics to complex inferential statistical procedures like data mining and time series analysis. Training of this nature goes hand in hand very effectively with the more theoretical type of statistical tuition that someone might receive elsewhere. However, if a trainee is able to see the link between the theoretical approach and the practical application thereof then everything becomes clearer, it stimulates the desire to learn more and everything falls into place. Skills development in South Africa is very important to the extent that legislation has enabled Statistics SA to be part of a Public Sector Education & Training Authority (PSETA). Through this Stats SA has proposed to create SAS learnerships, which would allow individuals to learn and apply knowledge gained by SAS in the workplace. Hence, this paper aims to show the value that the training and usage of SAS has to an organisation like Statistics SA and what new developments and initiatives can be pursued to further meet this aim.

  • Statistics in Action (STAC) is a course designed to explain the processes involved in a survey. The course was designed by Statistics Sweden (SCB) for their internal staff. SCB has bilateral agreements with Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) and one of the initiatives of this partnership is the STAC course. Seven STAC courses were presented at Stats SA during the period 1997 to 2001. On each occasion two consultants from SCB presented the course. In 1998 and 2001 facilitators from Stats SA co-presented the course. The size of the groups ranged from 15-20 participants. Since its inception in South Africa a total of 115 employees from Stats SA and two each from the Department of Justice and the Department of Labour were trained. This paper attempts to establish the usefulness of the course and to determine if it has enhanced the participants' knowledge of the survey process. Should the course be continued at Stats SA? Can the course serve as an instrument to address statistical literacy within the National Statistics System (NSS)?

  • WWW-based mathematics and statistics courses frequently incorporate machine-scorable items (i.e., True-False, Multiple Choice, and Matching) in both formative and summative assessments. For instance, WebCT and BlackBoard provide interfaces for the development and delivery of closed-form quizzes and examinations. Using these technologies, it is relatively easy to determine whether students possess detailed factual knowledge. It is much more difficult, using these technologies, to assess higher order thinking skills. This paper presents a Java-based extension to closed-form testing that may be better suited to assessing higher-order thinking skills.

  • A main point to assure the future of statistics education research is the training of researchers through the Master's and Doctoral Programmes. Since in the majority of countries there are no specific departments of Statistics Education, this training is carried out from Mathematics Education, Statistics, Education, Psychology and other related departments, and even there starting a line of research in statistics education is not an easy task, due to the lack of trained supervisors, specific bibliography and funds. In this presentation I will describe the experience of starting the first Doctoral Programme in Mathematics Education at the University of Granada, and developing there a research group in statistics education. The contents of the Doctoral Programme will be analysed as a first step to establish what an ideal programme for training future researchers in statistics education would be.

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