Research

  • The primary objectives were to evaluate and compare the addition of two active learning methods (cooperative and internet) on students' performance: assess their impact on performance after adjusting for differences in students' learning style; and examine the influence of learning style on trial participation. No performance differences by group were observed by intent-to-treat analysis. Participation in active learning appears to improve students performance in an introductory biostatistics course and provides opportunities for enhancing understanding beyond that attained in traditional didactic classrooms.

  • This thesis is the recount of a study that began with the aim of unpacking the statistical expertise of the teacher and author, with the intent of improving statistics teaching and learning. In the process of doing this, the researcher examined the expertise of other experts through a case study of a statistics professor, concept mapping of ideas of statistics professionals and through an examination of statistical literature. As the researcher and teacher moved to a position of accepting that statistics is a study of variation, she discovered a failure by authors of many introductory textbooks to appropriately acknowledge variation as a (the?) fundamental statistical concept.

  • The purpose of the present study is to investigate evidence of the validity of Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics Scale (SATS) scores and their relationship with scores from two other measures of attitudes toward statistics, the Attitude Toward Statistics Scale (ATS) and the Statistics Attitude Survey. The pre- and postcourse responses of 342 graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in inferential statistics courses at a large midwestern university were analyzed. Internal consistency reliability estimates were greater than .90 for total scores and greater than .70 for subscale scores for all instruments. Regression analyses confirmed the importance of SATS subscale scores over and above demographic variables in a theoretical model predicting statistics course achievement. Factor analyses suggested that both the ATS and the SATS have two domains, which is contrary to the four-factor solution proposed by the developers of the SATS.

  • A goal of this study is to verify, or modify, the genetic decomposition of the Central Limit Theorem through the identification of students who had developed a viable understanding of this theorem. Another goal of the present paper is to add to the body of knowledge concerning the development of statistical knowledge in college students by building on the work done by Mathews and Clark.

  • The effectiveness of simulations for teaching statistical concepts was compared to the effectiveness of a textbook. The variable Medium (simulation versus textbook) and Question specificity (specific versus Non-specific), were manipulated factorially. The subjects consisted of 115 college students. The dependent variable was performance on problems requiring subjects to apply what they learned to ill defined everyday problems. Subjects trained by simulation performed significantly better than those trained with a textbook. subjects in the "specific" condition performed better than those in the "Non-specific" condition, although the difference did not reach conventional levels of significance. these results support the increasing use of simulation in education and training.

  • Most college students are required to enroll in statistics and quantitative research methodology courses as a necessary part of their degree programmes. Unfortunately, many students report high levels of statistics anxiety while enrolled in these classes. Recent years have seen an increase in the number of articles on statistics anxiety appearing in the literature, as researchers have recognised that statistics anxiety is a multidimensionality construct that has debilitative effects on academic performance. Thus, the purpose of this article is to provide a comprehensive summary of the literature on statistics anxiety. In particular, the nature, etiology, and prevalence of statistics anxiety are described. Additionally, antecedents (i.e. dispositional, situational and environmental) of statistics anxiety are identified, as well as their effects on statistics achievement. Furthermore, existing measures of statistics anxiety are documented. Finally, based on the literature, successful interventions for reducing statistics anxiety are described. Implications for future research are provided.

  • While recent and ongoing research has begun to reveal ways that precollege students think about variation, little research has been done with the preservice teachers who will eventually serve such students. Specifically, more research is needed to understand what are the conceptions of variation held by elementary preservice teachers (EPSTs), and also how to shape the university courses where those preservice teachers learn. This paper, sharing an excerpt from an exploratory study aimed at EPSTs, describes changes in class responses to a probability task where variation is a key component. Overall, going from before to after a series of instructional interventions, responses reflected a more appropriate sensitivity to the presence of variation.

  • From the beginning of the nineties, the different curricular reforms in Spain have favoured the introduction of probability. However, the reality in the classroom is very different since teachers show resistance to accepting this curricular innovation. To explain this situation, the "Professional Development Teachers" research group in the University of Cadiz carried out research dealing with teachers' conceptions of probability, the sources of professional knowledge used to teach probability, and the probability content in Spanish textbooks. In this particular paper we will present results form a case study where teachers' arguments to justify their resistance to introducing probability in Compulsory Secondary Education are analyzed. A theoretical framework related to the knowledge of probability and pedagogical professional knowledge is introduced in order to interpret the teachers' reasoning and understand the evolution of teachers' intervention in the teaching and learning process.

  • In this paper we analyze a design experiment aimed at supporting the professional development in statistics of twelve middle-school teachers in the United States. We explain how adopting a sociocultural framework allowed us to account for teachers' struggles to make sense of instructional practices in statistics that place students' reasoning at the center of instructional decision-making. We also account for how the adoption of the sociocultural framework allowed us to envision a viable way in which to better support the professional development of the participating teachers.

  • Recent research in statistical reasoning has focused on the developmental process in students when learning statistical reasoning skills. This study investigates statistical reasoning from the perspective of individual differences. As manifestation of heterogeneity, students' prior attitudes toward statistics, measured by the extended Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics (SATS: Schau, Stevens, Dauphinee and DeVecchio, 1995), and students' learning approaches, measured by the Inventory of Learning Styles (ILS; Vermunt, 2005) are used. Students' statistical reasoning abilities are identified by the Statistical Reasoning Assessment instrument (SRA; Garfield 1998, 2003). The aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between both attitudes and learning approaches versus reasoning abilities by estimating full structural equation models. Instructional implications of the models for the teaching of statistical reasoning are discussed.

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