This paper is from Session 4E: Teachers’ knowledge and curriculum
which comes under Topic 4: Improving teaching and capacity in statistics education
Paper 4E1 (Tuesday 10th, 14:00-15:30)
Assessing the association between quantitative maturity and student performance in an introductory statistics class: simulation-based vs non simulation-based
Presenter
- Jill VanderStoep (Hope College, United States)
Co-authors
- Cassandra Lenderink (Dordt College, United States)
- Olivia Couch (Dordt College, United States)
Abstract
The use of simulation-based inference (SBI) methods when teaching introductory statistics continues to grow in popularity with evidence showing improvement in students’ statistical thinking compared to theory-based (consensus) methods. Recent findings from two institutions comparing consensus curricula to SBI show that regardless of the measure used for a student’s mathematical competency, SBI curriculum meaningfully impacted student learning. Here we revisit measures of mathematical competency with over 5,000 students at 81 institutions. In this larger sample, regardless of curriculum, weaker students tend to improve more by the end of the course than stronger students, however, SBI curricula outperformed consensus curricula for all levels of student mathematical competencies, with largest improvements seen on tests of significance and study design.