Conference Paper

  • A recurrent problem in teaching is to evaluate what the students will retain from the contents discussed in class. For the students who completed two basic courses on statistics, we applied a questionnaire with a test, 3 months after the end of the course. The test was composed of 50 true-false questions. The results revealed that students could satisfactorily answer the questions directly related with definitions. However, there was no such performance when the questions required additional procedures related.

  • Java-applets have proved to be effective in different settings to demonstrate statistical concepts. The NSF-funded Statistics Online Computational Resource (SOCR) provides a number of interactive tools for enhancing instruction in various undergraduate and graduate courses in probability and statistics. In this paper, we present the results of a quasi-experiment aimed at assessing the effect of moderate use of SOCR on three outcome measures: course scores, student satisfaction and choice of technology to complete the final examination. One section of an upper division "Introduction to probability" class, the treatment group, was conducted with the instructor using the probability applets and materials as assessment tools in homework. Another section, the control group, of the same class was conducted exactly the same way, but not using SOCR. We compared the three outcome measures in the two groups and discuss ways to improve the quasi-experiment. Ideas are given on how to incorporate the applets in various probability courses.

  • This paper reports results the main errors and difficulties experienced by a group of eleven university students when solving problems of sampling distributions by means of computer simulation using Fathom software (Finzer et. al, 2002). The main difficulties were the formulation of the population model, the definition of the statistics to be calculated in each sample and the definition of the intervals to calculate the probabilities. It was not necessary to carry out some of the long processes of the pencil and paper environment which are the source of several mistakes and difficulties. It was also possible to facilitate the interpretation of some results such as the proportions of cases of interest out of the total of possible cases.

  • Student mastery of material from an introductory statistics course was compared across courses that differed by whether a progressive mastery testing method was used. Students taught using progressive mastery methods showed increases in exam scores. The increases were small but of the same order of magnitude as increases associated with earning a course grade of A versus B+ and as increases associated with 100 points increases on the SAT math test. The increase in exam scores was about 75% of the increase associated with having taken a high school advanced placement course in addition to the college introductory course. However these increases were short lived as these students showed double rates of decline when tested in follow-up semesters. All benefit of the method vanished within two semesters.

  • We investigate experiences of first-year, non-science students with three data analysis tools during a pre-Calculus, introductory statistics course at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. Students could choose between DataDesk, Excel or StatCrunch, and were required to use one of these packages to analyze data collected for a semester project. It was especially important to evaluate these software packages from the point of view of a first-time user with no previous experience in either Statistics or advanced computer usage; several students were at first somewhat apprehensive of using a computer to analyze data. Among other outcomes, this investigation led to the development of student-based comparison of three software packages, from the perspective of a large group of potential users.

  • This paper reports on our ongoing research on the teaching and learning of averages in secondary mathematics education based on a questionnaire that combine open-ended and multiple-choice questions. Analysis has led us to note that many students who choose the correct answers in multiple-choice questions were completely unable to demonstrate any reasonable method of solving related open questions.

  • We discuss our practice related to classical hypothesis testing about unknown parameters of a normal population offered to undergraduates in the University of São Paulo. We consider the tests for the population mean and variance when the sample size is "large" and "small" as well as the well-known tests comparing the means and variances for independent samples. We suggest an algorithmic approach, which our students appreciate

  • This work used a test to explore capacities, limitations and errors that students may have during processes of learning statistical graphs in Primary Education. We display some results of a test given to groups of students from schools in New Zealand and Spain, to investigate how they make translations between different types of graphic representation.

  • The concepts of disjunctive events and independent events are didactic ideas that are daily used in the classroom. Previous observations of attitudes and assessment given to students at university level who attend the introductory Statistics course have helped detect the confusion between disjunctive events and independent events, and indicate the spontaneous ideas that students tend to elaborate about both concepts in the different situations in which these notions have to be considered. However the relation between these ideas and their formal definitions is not known in detail. In this work, we use Didactic Engineering as methodology to analyze students' misconceptions, their persistence, and the process by which the student confronts his misconceptions by applying theoretical concepts. The aim is to improve the teaching of these topics.

  • Recent studies have indicated that student attitudes can assist or impede learning and that students tend to have negative attitudes towards mathematics and statistics. We used a treatment-control experimental design to explore the effects of using video clips, showing applications of statistics in real world settings, on student attitudes toward statistics. Students with higher scores on standardized tests of mathematical and verbal ability, who were exposed to the video treatment, had more positive attitudes toward statistics than video exposed students with lower ability scores and more than students who were not exposed to the video treatment.

Pages