AN EMPIRICAL CONSIDERATION OF A BALANCED AMALGAMATION OF LEARNING STRATEGIES IN GRADUATE INTRODUCTORY STATISTICS CLASSES

Authors

  • BRANDON K. VAUGHN Unversity of Texas

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52041/serj.v8i1.458

Keywords:

Statistics education research, Graduate-level education, Active learning, Collaborative learning, Lecture-based learning, Team projects, Classroom instruction

Abstract

This study considers the effectiveness of a “balanced amalgamated” approach to teaching graduate level introductory statistics. Although some research stresses replacing traditional lectures with more active learning methods, the approach of this study is to combine effective lecturing with active learning and team projects. The results of this study indicate that such a balanced amalgamated approach to learning not only improves student cognition of course material, but student morale as well. An instructional approach that combines mini-lectures with in-class active-learnin activities appears to be a better approach than traditional lecturing alone for teaching graduate-level students.

First published May 2009 at Statistics Education Research Journal: Archives

References

Aliaga, M., & Gunderson, B. (2003). Interactive statistics. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Bligh, D. A. (2000). What’s the use of lectures? San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bradstreet, T. E. (1996). Teaching introductory statistics courses so that nonstatisticians experience statistical reasoning. The American Statistician, 50, 69-78.

Bryce, G. R. (2005). Developing tomorrow’s statisticians. Journal of Statistics Education, 13(1).

[Online: http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v13n1/bryce.html]

Chance, B. L. (1997). Experiences with authentic assessment techniques in an introductory statistics course. Journal of Statistics Education, 5(3). [Online: http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v5n3/chance.html]

Chance, B. L. (2005). Integrating pedagogies to teach statistics. In J. Garfield (Ed.), Innovations in Teaching Statistics. MAA Notes, Vol. 65 (pp. 101-112). Washington, DC: Mathematical Association of America .

Cobb, G. W. (1991). Teaching statistics: More data, less lecturing. Amstat News, December, No. 182, 1 and 4.

Cobb, G. W. (1993). Reconsidering statistics education: A National Science Foundation conference. Journal of Statistics Education, 1(1). [Online: http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v1n1/cobb.html]

Delucchi, M. (2006). The efficacy of collaborative learning groups in an undergraduate statistics course. College Teaching, 54(2), 244-248.

Dietz, E. J. (1993). A cooperative learning activity on methods of selecting a sample. The American Statistician, 47, 104-108.

Fillebrown, S. (1994). Using projects in an elementary statistics course for non-science majors. Journal of Statistics Education, 2(2). [Online: http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v2n2/fillebrown.html]

Ford, N., & Chen, S. Y. (2002). Matching/mismatching revisited: An empirical study of learning and teaching styles. British Journal of Educational Technology, 32(1), 5-22.

Gal, I., & Garfield, J. B. (Eds.) (1997). The assessment challenge in statistics education. Amsterdam: IOS Press/International Statistical Institute.

Garfield, J. (1993). Teaching statistics using small-group cooperative learning. Journal of

Statistics Education, 1(1). [Online: http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v1n1/garfield.html]

Garfield, J. (1995). How students learn statistics. International Statistical Review, 63(1),

-48.

Garfield, J. & delMas, R. (1991). Students’ conceptions of probability. In D. Vere-Jones (Ed.), Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Teaching Statistics, Volume 1 (pp. 340-349). Voorburg, The Netherlands: International Statistical Institute.

Giraud, G. (1997). Cooperative learning and statistics instruction. Journal of Statistics Education, 5(3). [Online: http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v5n3/giraud.html]

Gnanadesikan, M., Scheaffer, R. L., Watkins, A. E., & Witmer, J. A. (1997). An activitybased statistics course. Journal of Statistics Education, 5(2). [Online: http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v5n2/gnanadesikan.html]

Grasha, A. F. (1996). Teaching with style. Pittsburgh, PA: Alliance Press.

Hogg, R. V. (1991). Statistical education: Improvements are badly deeded. The American Statistician, 45, 342-343.

Hunter, W. G. (1977). Some ideas about teaching design of experiments, with 25 examples of experiments conducted by students. The American Statistician, 31, 12-17.

Johnson, H. D., & Dasgupta, N. (2005). Traditional versus non-traditional teaching: Perspectives of students in introductory statistics classes. Journal of Statistics Education, 13(2).[Online: www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v13n2/johnson.html]

Jones, L. (1991). Using cooperative learning to teach statistics. Research Report Number 91-2, The L. L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory, University of North Carolina.

Jordan, J. (2007). The application of statistics education research in my classroom. Journal of Statistics Education, 15(2). [Online: http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v15n2/jordan.html]

Keeler, C. M., & Steinhorst, R. K. (1995). Using small groups to promote active learning in the introductory statistics course: A report from the field. Journal of Statistics Education, 3(2).

[Online: http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v3n2/keeler.html]

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and

development. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Ledolter, J. (1995). Projects in introductory statistics courses. The American Statistician, 49, 364-367.

Lovett, M. C. (2001). A collaborative convergence on studying reasoning processes: A case study in statistics. In S. M. Carver & D. Klahr (Eds.), Cognition and instruction: Twenty-five years of progress (pp. 347-384). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Lovett, M. C., & Greenhouse, J. B. (2000). Applying cognitive theory to statistics instruction. The American Statistician, 54(3), 196-206.

Mackisack, M. (1994). What is the use of experiments conducted by statistics students? Journal of Statistics Education, 2(1). [Online: http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v2n1/mackisack.html]

Moore, D. S. (1997). New pedagogy and new content: The case of statistics. International Statistical Review, 65(2), 123-137.

Neter, J., Kutner, M. H., Nachtsheim, C. J., & Wasserman, W. (1996). Applied linear statistical models (4th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.

Shadish, W. R., Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (2002). Experimental and quasiexperimental designs for generalized causal inference. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Shaughnessy, J. M. (1977). Misconceptions of probability: An experiment with a smallgroup activity-based model building approach to introductory probability at the college level. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 8, 285-315.

Singer, J. D., & Willett, J. B. (1990). Improving the teaching of applied statistics: Putting the data back into data analysis. The American Statistician, 44, 223-230.

Smith, G. (1998). Learning statistics by doing statistics. Journal of Statistics Education, 6(3).

[Online: http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v6n3/smith.html]

Snee, R. D. (1993). What’s missing in statistical education? The American Statistician, 47, 149-154.

Steinhorst, R., & Keeler, C. (1995). Developing material for introductory statistics courses from a conceptual, active learning viewpoint. Journal of Statistics Education, 3(3). [Online: http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v3n3/steinhorst.html]

Ward, B. (2004). The best of both worlds: A hybrid statistics class. Journal of Statistics Education, 12(3). [Online: http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v12n3/ward.html]

Downloads

Published

2009-05-31

Issue

Section

Regular Articles