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This paper is from Session 3A: Statistics as a service subject in courses

which comes under Topic 3: Statistics education at the post-secondary level             Full topic list

(Monday 3rd, 16:00-18:00)

Letting students understand why statistics is worth studying

Presenter

• Eric Sowey (Australia)

Abstract

Whether they are studying statistics as a disciplinary major or through service courses, students will be more motivated towards what they are learning, and will retain a richer recall of it, if they feel they are doing something worthwhile. I have previously argued that three elements in teaching are salient in giving a sense of worthwhileness: showing that statistics is interesting, useful, and substantial. The first two of these elements are already well discussed. But letting statistics be seen as a substantial discipline, in the sense of being resilient to challenging questioning prompted by students’ own curiosity, has not been previously addressed in the statistics education literature. Here I show the kinds of challenging questions which serve this goal. The answers given need not be overly-detailed: what matters is that they satisfy students’ curiosity. In this way they strengthen the students’ sense that statistics is worth the effort of study.