A first year statistics programme for indigenous and migrant students arrived at by co-operating with local communities and the students themselves.


Book: 
Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference On Teaching Statistics (ICOTS-7), Salvador, Brazil.
Authors: 
Clark, M.
Editors: 
Rossman, A., & Chance, B.
Category: 
Year: 
2006
Publisher: 
Voorburg, The Netherlands: International Statistical Institute.
URL: 
http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/publications/17/1B1_CLAR.pdf
Abstract: 

A well known dilemma for statistics educators is that while different groups of students learn best in different ways (see for example Cotts, 1994), usually there are only a few instructors for a course operating within tight time and content constraints, especially at first year university level. I will outline a way of partially accommodating the needs of indigenous and migrant students of first year statistics, arrived at by co-operation with the local community and taking their aspirations into account. We also kept in mind what the students themselves wanted from the course and how they planned to use statistics in their lives. Our programme has achieved successful outcomes for many of these students and while we work within a New Zealand framework there are many aspects of our programme that can be adapted in other countries.

The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education