S02: Alumni writing in statistics in early careers

Information

This poster presents the results of an IRB-approved survey administered during Spring 2023 to statistics and data analytics alumni Elon University. Typical class sizes at our private, liberal arts university are around 30 students. This research seeks to better understand the writing habits of alumni from the statistics and data analytics program. The survey was sent to all alumni graduating from our institution with a degree in statistics whose email address was on record (approximately 122 students). Items on the survey asked participants about writing in their first career related to their statistics major. In particular, the survey asked participants about the primary purpose, audience, style, and composition of statistical writing in their earliest careers. No incentive was provided for participation in the survey, and around 10% of invited participants responded to the survey. Cross-disciplinary work on alumni writing has been explored in Bleakney, Moore, and Rosinski (2022), which includes studies done across disciplines at the same university in which this study was conducted. We will present results from the survey on what writing early career majors are doing, as well as our thoughts on how these results could affect our curriculum. For example, we report on the types of writing that students attributed to making them more successful writers in their early careers and the areas of improvement identified by our alumni.