Comments Related to

The ASA Undergraduate Statistics Education Initiative (USEI)

Joe Ward
167 East Arrowhead Drive
San Antonio, TX 78228-2402
210-433-6575

Email: joeward@tenet.edu

The JSM Symposium and related JSM sessions were outstanding. The many thoughtful presentations and participant discussions were right on target. My comments focus on several closely related topics. I have tried to correctly identify some of the ideas, but if I have made attribution errors please let me know.
    1. SELL! SELL! SELL! --


      2. David Moore's Keynote address at the USEI session contained a slide that emphasized the need to SELL the Statistics "Products". If a product "marketer" maintains a philosophy of "Take It or Leave it", then consumers may choose to "Leave it" and the producer might have to close up.

      The following items ALL RELATE TO THE "SELL" OBJECTIVE.
       

    2. Take Close Looks at the First Course in Statistics to help SELL --


      3. -- At the USEI meeting, Rex Bryce mentioned the need to take a close look at the present contents of Elementary Statistics Courses.

      -- During the presentation of The Penn State Model of the Elementary Statistics Course (Session #52) each member of the audience was asked to select topics to be Eliminated and topics to be Added to the Course. The discussions that followed were quite interesting.

      -- While the Elimination/Addition process is underway, careful attention should be given to topics that might help "Sell" statistics. Most teachers have their FAVORITE topics to help "SELL".

      -- Statistics instruction in locations that can offer only a limited menu of statistics topics need

      statistics "products" that contain carefully selected objectives from several different existing courses.
       

    3. Regression/Linear Models to help SELL --


      4. -- At the USEI meeting Thad Tarpey mentioned that he was almost "turned off" from Statistics until he studied

      Regression models.

      -- Regression/Linear Models seemed to be postponed until the second statistics course. The data analysis power of

      Regression/Linear Models could help "SELL" the practical value of Statistics.

      Perhaps it can gain entry into the first course if different instructional strategies are implemented. One such method that helps a student gain the power to use Regression/Linear Models is a "Cell-Means" approach. Writings about this approach can be seen at http://www.ijoa.org/joeward/wardindex.html
       

    4. Computer Intensive Methods to help SELL --


      5. Computer intensive applications using Resampling (Bootstrap/Cross-Validation) methods can provide

      first course methods that help "SELL" the power of modern data-analysis techniques.
       
       

    5. Statistics in the Education of Future Teachers --
In Session #281 there were discussions of the statistics education of future teachers in K-12. The suggested statistics education of elementary teachers seems to provide some flexibility within a wide range of topics.

The statistics education for secondary teachers seems to be overly constrained by the present AP-Statistics objectives.

The AP-Statistics objectives must satisfy the requirements of the first college statistics course. However, the secondary student deserves and is adequately prepared to use the power of selected high-quality data analyses and computers in practical research and these are not yet included among the AP-Statistics objectives. Secondary teachers (mathematics and/or science) should be prepared to teach a different statistics course. Perhaps the College Board can create a new AP-Applied Statistics course that features powerful techniques for applications and data analysis. It may be necessary to define a "matching" College statistics course.
 

 6. Task Analysis for the Statistician If it is desired to perform a detailed task analysis of "What is required of a Statistician" consider technologies available from the U.S. Air Force Job Analysis program. Perhaps the National Science Foundation might consider financing a Task Analysis research project to help identify the job(s) of "Statistician" or other job classifications related to "Statistician". Application of the Air Force's Comprehensive Occupational Data Analysis Program (CODAP) helped to identify the new job titled "Physician Assistant".

One non-profit company that does Task/Job/Occupational Analysis for government and industry is The Institute for Job and Occupational Analysis (IJOA). The contact at IJOA is Dr. Jimmy Mitchell, 210-349-8525 and the IJOA web page is www.ijoa.org. New technology allows for efficient conduct of task surveys via computer-based disks and the internet.
 

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posted Oct 31, 2000