{"id":587,"date":"2014-12-23T13:27:33","date_gmt":"2014-12-23T18:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.causeweb.org\/sbi\/?p=587"},"modified":"2014-12-23T14:16:48","modified_gmt":"2014-12-23T19:16:48","slug":"should-we-teach-the-bootstrap-or-not-in-introductory-statistics-courses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.causeweb.org\/sbi\/?p=587","title":{"rendered":"Should we teach the bootstrap or not in introductory statistics courses?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Malone – Winona State University<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"malone\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One’s success in a course is often determined by his or her\u00a0desire and motivation to learn.\u00a0 Unfortunately, desire and motivation are often lacking in an introductory statistics course.\u00a0 I have learned some tricks over my years of teaching to enhance motivation — leverage their existing knowledge whenever possible and require students to repeatedly consider the phrase \u201cWhat would happen if \u2026 .”[pullquote]Modern technologies and the recent advances in the use of simulation-based methods in teaching introductory statistics have allowed students to easily consider a variety of \u201cWhat would happen if \u2026\u201d \u00a0scenarios.\u00a0[\/pullquote]<\/p>\n

Consider the difficult topic of getting students to conceptualize the sampling distribution of a sample proportion.\u00a0 Modern technologies and the recent advances in the use of simulation-based methods in teaching introductory statistics have allowed students to easily consider a variety of \u201cWhat would happen if \u2026\u201d \u00a0scenarios.\u00a0 For example, students can quickly obtain a simulated sampling distribution under Ho: p = 0.50 and compare it against a simulated distribution under Ho: p = 0.90 to understand that the variation in these distributions depends on p.\u00a0 To be honest, I\u2019ve come to accept that fact that very few of my introductory students will ever come to appreciate this as much as I do. Instead, their concern tends to be centered on their ability to get their p-value below 0.05 so they can achieve the desirable outcome of rejecting Ho. \u00a0But in my opinion, these \u2018What would happen if \u2026\u201d investigations do indeed invoke curiosity and in turn motivate students to learn statistics.<\/p>\n

I should not advocate for the use of these \u201cWhat would happen if \u2026\u201d investigations without communicating some of the adverse consequences.\u00a0\u00a0 Consider again the investigation of the sampling distribution of a sample proportion under Ho. \u00a0I find that students tend to gravitate toward the more natural situation of creating the sampling distribution using \"image002\"<\/sub>\u00a0instead of generating the distribution under Ho.\u00a0 Obviously, in a testing situation the sampling distribution using \"image002\"<\/sub>\u00a0is not considered as we evaluate evidence against the null hypothesis.\u00a0 However, generating the sampling distribution using \"image002\"<\/sub>\u00a0is completely valid in other situations, such as obtaining an estimate of the margin-of-error. Generating a sampling distribution using \"image002\"<\/sub>\u00a0 (or under any highly-specified model) can be thought of as a parametric bootstrap approach which differs from the typical non-parametric approach of taking several repeated samples with replacement from your data.<\/p>\n

Statistics is a discipline in a constant state of change.\u00a0 It is no wonder that instructors often feel overwhelmed when considering how to best to teach statistics.\u00a0 Instructors should carefully consider their motives in using the bootstrap or other simulation-based approaches in teaching introductory statistics. Our motives and goals in using the bootstrap are not often matched by the students. [pullquote]Instructors should carefully consider their motives in using the bootstrap or other simulation-based approaches in teaching introductory statistics. Our motives and goals in using the bootstrap are not often matched by the students.[\/pullquote]From our perspective, the purpose of generating a sampling distribution under Ho (to obtain a p<\/em>-value), is very different than the purpose of generating a sampling distribution using \"image002\"\u00a0<\/sub>(to obtain an estimated for the margin-of-error).\u00a0 From a student\u2019s perspective, the \u201cWhat would happen if \u2026\u201d approach to teaching along with the bootstrap provides a way for him or her\u00a0to freely explore distributions without some pre-determined motive.\u00a0 The bootstrap does not make teaching easier, students still need to understand that the p<\/em>-value is to be computed under Ho and that the margin-of-error is computed when the sampling distribution is obtained using the observed statistic.\u00a0 The bootstrap does however require less in the way of formulas and theoretical assumptions which often needlessly complicate the teaching of introductory statistics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Malone – Winona State University One’s success in a course is often determined by his or her\u00a0desire and motivation to learn.\u00a0 Unfortunately, desire and motivation are often lacking in an introductory statistics course.\u00a0 I have learned some tricks over my years of teaching to enhance motivation — leverage their existing knowledge whenever possible and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-5-should-i-teach-bootstrapping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causeweb.org\/sbi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causeweb.org\/sbi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causeweb.org\/sbi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causeweb.org\/sbi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causeweb.org\/sbi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=587"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.causeweb.org\/sbi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":598,"href":"https:\/\/www.causeweb.org\/sbi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions\/598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causeweb.org\/sbi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causeweb.org\/sbi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causeweb.org\/sbi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}