Literature Index

The 1993 inaugural issue of the Journal of Statistics Education (JSE) published an article about a small conference for Principal Investigators (PIs) and co-PIs of twelve projects in statistics education funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). This twenty-year retrospective (1) offers some personal memories related to the founding of JSE, (2) offers some thoughts about the legacies of the twelve funded projects, (3) sets out a sense of how the conference themes have fared over the last twenty years, and (4) indicates what this might suggest about the future of our profession. In conclusion, I argue (briefly) that at this moment in its history, statistics education faces the biggest opportunity and challenge of its last 40 years.

This paper describes a course aimed at mature age students who are lacking in basic mathematical skills and who are anxious about mathematics but who are required to do a service course in statistics. The course aims to improve basic skills and attitudes to mathematics and, in addition, to move students from a rule-based approach to mathematics and statistics to a more flexible one. Flexibility in mathematical thinking is required if students at a later stage are to be able to consider and assess the relative merits of different ways of analysing batches of data. Basic skills and attitudes both before and after the course have been measured using an author-prepared test for the former and an attitude to mathematics [Fennema] test for the latter. Mathematical thinking has been measured by using material based on the SOLO (Structure of the Learned Outcome) taxonomy. There has been some evidence of a change in basic skills and attitudes to mathematics over the duration of the course, but to date there has not been an accompanying change in the level of mathematical thinking.

By applying the Teaching for Understanding Project's framework to classroom situations, both teachers and researchers gained new insights.

There is a growing feeling in the statistical community that significant changes must be made in statistical education. Statistical education has traditionally focused on developing knowledge and skills and assumed that students would create value for the subject in the process. This approach hasn't worked. It is argued that we can help students better learn statistical thinking and methods and create value for its use by focusing both the content and delivery of statistical education on how people use statistical thinking and methods to learn, solve problems, and improve processes. Learning from your experiences, by using statistical thinking in real-life situations, is an effective way to create value for a subject and build knowledge and skills at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. The learnings from psychology and behavioral science are also shown to be helpful in improving the delivery of statistics education.