This paper is from Session 7B: Statistics and sports
which comes under Topic 7: Statistics education and the wider society
(Wednesday 14th, 11:00-13:00)
Using sports data to motivate statistical concepts: experiences from a freshman course
Presenter
Abstract
We discuss observations from teaching a freshman course: Statistical Analysis of Sports and Games. In many respects, this is a standard first college statistics course. Analyzing sports data, however, generates student interest in statistical ideas. Moreover, quantitative analysis in sports has become a serious research field, and many professional teams now employ statisticians. It is important for students to realize that academic and non-academic opportunities exist beyond the course. There also remain issues that need to be addressed before sports statistics courses become commonplace. They should: (1) appeal to both male and female students, (2) have a broad focus and not be too baseball-centric, (3) be primarily about statistics, not sports, and (4) have access to more appropriate textbooks. At the core of any statistics course is a desire to answer questions in meaningful ways. We offer ideas on how this can best be accomplished in this context.
