Topic 3

Statistics education at the post-secondary level

Convenors

• Yury Rojas (Colombia)
• Jennifer Broatch (United States)
• Felipe Ruz Angel (Chile)
• Nathan Tintle (United States)

Abstract

In an increasingly data-centric world, where both consumers and creators of statistical information are required to understand the complex associations among the many variables that form the basis for data-driven decisions, there continue to be large gaps between the world’s need for drawing informed decisions from data, and the statistical abilities of its citizens. Addressing these gaps requires improving both the pedagogy of, and the content in, post-secondary courses. It entails leveraging our understanding of how students learn Statistics and continuing to improve the relevance of the content taught: emphasizing statistical thinking over algorithms or number-crunching. It also requires careful and continual design of instruction that takes into account current contexts and content relevant when doing Statistics.

Important questions for this topic include but are not limited to:

• How do we prepare pre-service teachers to design learning experiences that empower students to use Statistics as a relevant tool in today’s world?
• How do we design and implement courses that recognize students’ needs and reduce the achievement gap at the post-secondary level?
• Which pedagogical principles should we take into account in order to promote inclusive and equitable learning experiences for marginalized students? How might these look different in different contexts (student ability level, institutional resources, cultural differences)?
• How can we help students to use data context, simulation, inference, visualization and technology to draw informed conclusions?
• What tools can we use to motivate students to grow in their appreciation of Statistics, their understanding of its relevance and their confidence in using data to draw conclusions?