Proceedings

  • The document presented here, called "Análisis Multidimensional de Datos" in Spanish ("Multidimensional Data Analysis") is geared toward engineering students in Mexico, Latin America, and Spain. It shows all the theory of data analysis, starting with a biographical sketch of its historical development and how data are organized. It deals with the theory of factorial analysis and scalograms, beginning with establishing information management. A large variety of applications with actual data are presented throughout the text, and a set of programs is furnished that can be implemented easily in a personal computer. The related software is listed at the end.

  • This paper will describe a project designed to enhance the numeracy skills of students at two educational levels - elementary and undergraduate. Under the guidance of the university students, students in grades four through six will formulate a research question, gather the appropriate data and summarize the data using graphs. The graphs along with a written summary of the project will be displayed in a poster, which will be sent to the national poster competition sponsored by the American Statistical Association.

  • Teaching probabilities to preschoolers is a very important task as daily decision making is based on probabilities. Although all children are well acquainted with probabilistic terms very few discussions are held in their classrooms because most of the preschool teachers are not prepared to teach probabilities. This study presents a way of teaching probabilities using Internet games and the constructivism theory.

  • Transition to a market economy has generated increasing importance of both data and analytical statistical tools for business and government. Profound economic reforms changed the underestimated role of statistics under central planning and evidenced the need to use it more actively as basis for carrying out national policy and strategies in all economic sectors. In addition the process of accession of Bulgaria to the European Union requires the harmonization of legislation concerned with statistics and compliance of basic statistical surveys with the EU standards and the main EU policies. As a result during the last 10 years noticeable changes in the organization and methodology of official statistics took place in Bulgaria. This process has been facilitated by the advances in Information Technology (IT). The IT revolution and the Internet in particular has greatly increased the feasibility of easy communication of huge data sets at all levels of summary and enriches the opportunities to apply the sophisticated tools associated with large data sets.

  • This paper highlights the statistical thinking of teachers in analyzing their own students' high-stakes test data. The research here emphasizes the impact that an immersion model for teachers-doing statistics as statisticians-can provide in raising statistical content knowledge, engendering a mindset of inquiry, developing facility with technology, and enriching understanding of student outcome data. Four constructs - measurable conjectures, tolerance for variability, context, and inference & conclusions - provide the basis of a taxonomy to describe teachers' statistical thinking about comparing two groups in the context of an accountability system.

  • This study investigated whether elementary education majors in the teacher education program at Montana State University (MSU) acquire and retain knowledge of statistical data analysis concepts and skills consistent with expectations specified in the NCTM "Principles and Standards for School Mathematics" (2000). The following statistical topics were covered: Finding, describing and interpreting mean, median and mode; interpreting the spread of a set of data; understanding the meaning of the shape and features of a graph; comparing centers, spreads, and graphical representations of related data sets; and using scatter plots and lines of best fit.

  • Our approach to teaching statistics to economics students is presented in our 2-volume book. Though written as a textbook for economics students, a broad population who seem to recognize the universalism of the approach is using it. We discuss here the dilemmas encountered in deciding course content and level of mathematical sophistication. The course at Tel Aviv University has undergone several changes, reflecting the changing viewpoints of the "consumer" (Dept. of Economics) and the "supplier" (Dept. of Statistics and OR). Presently, the course is almost as rigorous as the courses offered to statistics majors. Students appreciate the challenges arising in statistical theory, even if they lack sophisticated mathematical reasoning. We illustrate by examples how we teach relatively high-level mathematical concepts in statistical inference, such as maximum likelihood estimation and the Neyman-Pearson Lemma.

  • This paper will report on the outcomes for international students from two different cohorts, undertaking equivalent courses. The two streams are differentiated by their course entry standards. The entry level for one stream is an academic ENTER score of 68 and an IELTS language score of 5.5 and for the other an academic ENTER score of 80 with an IELTS language score of 6.0 was needed. Each of these two cohorts' is taught in a different manner. The two cohorts of students have been tracked over a period of years and their educational outcomes compared. The tracking indicates that the student cohort with the lower entry level has achieved similar outcomes to that with the higher entry level. Can it be concluded that the similarity in outcomes can be attributed to teaching methodology?

  • The way in which businesses compete is rapidly changing. Businesses must constantly strive to offer "better" products and services than their competitors. South African Companies on the whole need to improve the quality of their products in order to be a player in the global market. Managers must decide how to overcome the many problems that prevent quality products and services. One of the aims of this study was to establish whether managers in the manufacturing industry of KwaZulu Natal are aware of the uses of statistics in decision making. In this study, it was found that most of the quality managers either do not use statistical process control techniques or use them seldom or very seldom. It was established that the majority of the respondents do not use statistical process control charts. The above facts indicate the need for the awareness of the uses of statistical process control techniques and charts to improve the quality of products. Results of the "Survey on Statistical Quality Control Techniques" used by Managers in the Manufacturing Industry of KwaZuluNatal, are also given (Hargreaves, 1999).

  • In the paper we propose some educational standards for modal value and random sample. Those standards should facilitate deeper understanding of these statistical notions.

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