Sara Colando and Erin Franke (Carnegie Mellon University)
Abstract
The ability to communicate statistical results to domain experts is an important aspect of the undergraduate statistics and data science curriculum. However, as Large Language Models (LLMs) have become more accessible, students have started offloading many writing and coding tasks to generative AI. In this session, we show how students’ statistics writing has changed since LLMs became widely used, particularly in style and verb usage. We then discuss the implications of our findings on the writing-to-learn and writing-in-the-disciplines approaches to teaching statistics. Throughout the session, participants will engage in interactive polls about how students’ statistics writing has changed in recent years, and how they use AI in the classroom. We hope to foster a larger discussion on how statistics writing assessments can be modified in the age of AI to guarantee that students develop critical thinking and communication skills.