We are looking for instructors of introductory statistics who can help us to gather some data to assist in refining and finalizing an assessment of statistical reasoning as part of the NSF e-ATLAS project. This assessment is called Goals and Outcomes of Learning Statistics (GOALS).  Many of you have given earlier versions of the instrument in the past as part of our pilot testing. Since then, there have been some small changes in light of the data analyzed.

Please see below for details on the current version of GOALS. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Joan Garfield, Bob delMas, Andy Zieffler, Elizabeth Fry, Ethan Brown, and Anelise Sabbag,, University of Minnesota

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GOALS statistical reasoning assessment

The Goals and Outcomes of Learning Statistics (GOALS) assessment was developed as part of the NSF e-ATLAS project. The primary focus of GOALS is to assess students’ statistical reasoning developed during a first statistics course. Based on the pilot testing of an earlier version of GOALS, we believe that this assessment provides valuable information on what students are learning and how they are able to reason at the end of their courses, and ultimately may be used to identify changes in student learning over time.

GOALS includes 20 forced-choice items which sample the content of a modern first course in statistics. This content includes students’ understanding and reasoning about important statistical ideas such as variability, sampling variability, confidence intervals and p-values. The assessment does not include items related to more traditional topics such as reading a histogram or interpreting a mean. 

We would like your help in gathering data on the new GOALS assessment at the end of the current fall term. GOALS can be administered online in about 30 to 45 minutes. While not all of the content on GOALS may be covered in your course, we expect that nearly all of it will be familiar to your students.

If you are willing to have your students take the GOALS assessment, please go to the following link: 

Click the REGISTER button at the bottom of the page, which will take you to the registration form. You will be asked to enter the following information:

1. Your name and email address
   
2. The name of your institution, its location (City, State and Country), and the type of institution
   
3. The department you teach in primarily.
   
4. Your position at your institution. 

Once you have filled in all of the requested information, click the SUBMIT button to send your registration.

Meanwhile, if you have any questions please e-mail Bob delMas at delma001@umn.edu

Thank you so much for helping us work on the development and use of this instrument.

Sincerely,

The e-ATLAS Team 

University of Minnesota