This paper is from Session 4H: Integrating consulting with graduate education
which comes under Topic 4: Statistics education at the post secondary (tertiary) level
(Tuesday 13th, 11:00-12:30)
Experiences with research teams comprised of graduate students, faculty researchers, and a statistical consulting team
Presenter
- Heather Smith (California Polytechnic State University, United States)
Co-author
Abstract
Each year at Cal Poly, statistics faculty provide consulting services to over 100 non-statistician graduate students and research faculty from across the university as part of our Statistical Consulting Service. In addition, all undergraduate/tertiary statistics majors take a capstone course titled ‘Statistical Communication and Consulting.’ This course is a blend of the theoretical and practical aspects of statistical consulting; helping our statistics majors develop the tools necessary to successfully participate as statistical consultants. Following this training, many of these statistics majors work collaboratively with clients in their research efforts. These research teams are often comprised of a faculty statistician, a trained statistics major, non-statistician graduate students, and research faculty. We report on the key aspects of the statistical consulting course, and provide examples of these research efforts, emphasizing the learning benefits of this research arrangement to both the statistics majors and the graduate students.
