Proceedings

  • A preliminary survey revealed that there is not much yet worth reporting about the use of microcomputers in the Commonwealth Africa, especially in the context of the improvement of statistics teaching. The teaching of statistics as such has yet to receive the deserved attention, especially in the open colleges, and most of the government statistics officers are trained on the job or in special institutes elsewhere. Of course, there are universities offering statistics, mainly with Mathematics, Business, Engineering and Economics. In the polytechnics, some basic topics in statistics are offered with the mathematics courses for engineering or accounting. However, since the key goals of this conference include exchange of ideas on teaching materials, this presentation will focus on the preliminary issue of what computing materials have been identified in the region.

  • This paper presents a simple, unifying approach for teaching and computing power analysis for research designs involving linear and log-linear modeling. The principal advantage of this approach is that it borrows concepts, terminology, and software commonly used for data analysis within these systems. The scheme allows one to easily study the power of any test that can be performed with one's favorite linear or log-linear models routine, thereby making the method more flexible, precise, and "friendly" than table-based methods, such as those by Cohen (1977) and others.

  • The demand for data in applied statistics courses has increased dramatically in recent years as the growth in computer technology has enabled students to perform more sophisticated analyses on larger and more complicated data sets. This has increased the burden on instructors and textbook authors to supply interesting data to illustrate desired concepts and allow students to practice techniques. We will describe some ways the computer itself can be used to help satisfy the demand for data.

  • This paper shows in depth the simple, but important problem of MATCHED PAIRS, which can be treated in a new way by means of the computer.

  • The situation is described in terms of 1) degree programs, 2) applied statistics courses in tertiary education, 3) statistics in high school and 4) equipment and service. Problems in teaching statistics in the Philippines and possible solutions are outlined.

  • What I intend to present are various impressions based on experiences as a teacher and examinator of statistics in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Lesotho. It is natural that I use Sweden, my home country, as a frame of reference.

  • In the late sixties Hong Kong took her first step in introducing statistics into the secondary school mathematics curriculum as recommended by many national and international working groups in the mid fifties and early sixties. As statistics forms only a small portion of the entire mathematics syllabus, it is seldom singled out for inspection by mathematics educators in Hong Kong. We wish to take a first step in addressing this problem.

  • This paper discusses the educational system in Saudi Arabia and addresses problems the teaching of statistics faces. The objectives and content of the curriculum in Probability and Statistics are described. Recommendations are offered regarding the training of suitable teachers and the development of an improved curriculum.

  • The goal of ISPC training program (both international and domestic) has been, and will continue to be to promote personal and organizational statistical development by equipping statisticians and data processing specialists with the practical skills and conceptual background to enable them to adapt the latest technologies to the circumstances and needs of their countries or organizations. As the development needs of members of the world statistical community change, as new technologies emerge, and as new instructional methods become feasible, the ISPC training programs must continue to adapt to these challenges and opportunities.

  • Many statistics teaching groups have been founded in recent years, and doubtless more will be created in the future. In the great majority of cases at least part of the aim has been to strengthen the contribution of statistics to national development, and in some cases this has been the principal aim. How well such groups function will always depend mainly on the vision and determination of the staff involved, and on other individual matters such as the resources, human and financial, available, but there are also a number of general points that can be made, and this paper represents an attempt to discuss them systematically. It may be useful as a checklist, perhaps especially if those facing the task are relatively inexperienced, but individual circumstances are so variable that it can, of course, only be a general guide.

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