Julie Lorah (Clemson University), Christy Brown (Clemson University)
Abstract
There is currently a growing recognition of the need to focus on social justice issues in statistics education. Although this need is increasingly being recognized, there may still be a lack of attention to these issues, creating a key gap in the curriculum. As a result, statistics students may fail to gain the critical lens needed to be able to competently assess the use and misuse of numbers and the ways in which data can be used to provide opportunity or to create doubt about underrepresented groups. This session will address this gap by equipping statistics educators with concrete ideas for how to incorporate these topics into their curriculum. A central aspect of communicating with/about data relates to the ethics of appropriate data use. Through whole group discussion and a small group activity, this session will assist statistics instructors in preparing their students to be critical consumers and producers of statistical information. These activities are designed to help students better understand the context and history of method development, and the implications for data and model use and associated limitations, in particular as they relate to underrepresented groups. This type of understanding is critical for students to gain in order to better appreciate what quantitative results can and cannot tell us and to avoid misleading communication with regard to statistical findings. No prior knowledge is required.