Students in elementary statistics traditionally see experiments and data as words and numbers in a text. They receive little exposure to the important statistical activities of sample selection, data collection, experimental design, development of statistical models, the need for randomization, selection of factors, etc. They often leave the first course without a firm understanding of the role of applied statistics or of the statistician in scientific investigations. In an attempt to improve elementary statistics education, we have developed a statistics laboratory similar to those of other elementary science courses. We will discuss our experiences in teaching the one-semester hour Elementary Statistics Laboratory course that can be taken with or after the traditional elementary statistics course. In each session students, working in teams, discuss the design of an experiment, carry out the experiment, and analyze their data using Minitab on a Macintosh. The students then individually either answer a series of short answer questions or write a formal scientific report. The labs are designed to be relatively inexpensive and do not require a prior background in science, statistics or computing.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education