Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Michael R. Hulsizer is Associate Professor of Experimental Psychology at Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was honored with the prestigious William T. Kemper Award for Excellence in Teaching (2002). He has attended numerous National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology conferences and has won awards for posters presented at the conference. Michael has coauthored several teaching resources available at the Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology – Online. In addition, he recently contributed a chapter with Linda on incorporating diversity into research methods for Best Practices for Teaching Statistics and Research Methods in the Behavioral Sciences. Michael has also authored articles on mass violence, hate groups, and interpersonal aggression.

Linda M. Woolf is Professor of Experimental and Peace Psychology at Webster University. Linda is the recipient of several teaching awards including the 1988 Early Career Award from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology (Division 2, APA), Emerson Electric Excellence in Teaching Award (1990, 2000), and William T. Kemper Award for Excellence in Teaching (2000). She has authored numerous curriculum resources, book chapters, and journal articles concerning international psychology, peace psychology, mass violence, human rights, and research methods. Linda is Past-President of the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence (Division 48, APA) and former Secretary and Newsletter Editor for the Society for the Teaching of Psychology.

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A Guide to Teaching Statistics: Innovations and Best Practices, by Michael R. Hulsizer and Linda M. Woolf, is an invaluable guide for both novice and seasoned teachers of statistics. Based on an extensive review of the research in fields such as education, health sciences, mathematics, statistics, psychology, and the social sciences, the book covers a range of statistics education and assessment topics. The book also includes novel classroom exercises, pedagogical tools, and computer applications designed to enhance active learning. Topics include descriptive, inferential, and multivariate statistics as well as the importance of using real data in the classroom, the role of ethics and diversity in statistics, and the effectiveness of online statistical education. The authors also provide extensive coverage of the research concerning statistical literacy, thinking, and reasoning.

Aus dem Klappentext

A Guide to Teaching Statistics: Innovations and Best Practices, by Michael R. Hulsizer and Linda M. Woolf, is an invaluable guide for both novice and seasoned teachers of statistics. Based on an extensive review of the research in fields such as education, health sciences, mathematics, statistics, psychology, and the social sciences, the book covers a range of statistics education and assessment topics. The book also includes novel classroom exercises, pedagogical tools, and computer applications designed to enhance active learning. Topics include descriptive, inferential, and multivariate statistics as well as the importance of using real data in the classroom, the role of ethics and diversity in statistics, and the effectiveness of online statistical education. The authors also provide extensive coverage of the research concerning statistical literacy, thinking, and reasoning.

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Guide to Teaching Statistics

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

For some students, it is the course about which their peers have warned them. They have heard the horror stories and believed them. - Schutz, Drogosz, White, & DiStefano, 1998, p. 292

Statistics as both a course to take and one to teach has a dreaded reputation. If they are able, students invariably put off the course to the very last moment and appear visibly anxious on the first day of class. They seem to believe the scuttlebutt that any statistics course really deserves the title, "Stadistics." Of course, faculty are not much better. Our departmental chairperson joked that he does not like the three of us who teach statistics traveling together to a conference. "What if something happened! Who would teach statistics?" If truth be told, most of our colleagues, with a bit of time to prepare, could teach introductory statistics. However, they also seem to believe the mythology that the course is a drudge and more importantly, the notion that the course is ripe for less than stellar course evaluations.

However, nothing could be farther from the truth. Statistics can be one of the most fun and gratifying courses to teach. When we talk to fellow statistics teachers at various conferences, it is not unusual for one of us to comment on how much we enjoy teaching statistics. Oddly, what we have noticed is that individuals will often lower their voices a tad and look around before expressing similar thoughts. It is as if some teachers do not want others to know about one of the best-kept secrets in academia. Teaching statistics can be eminently rewarding and, more importantly, meets a fundamental need in helping students develop a solid knowledge foundation in psychology.

Nonetheless, as Mulhern and Wylie (2004) commented, "Teaching statistics and research methods to psychology undergraduates is a major pedagogic challenge" (p. 355). The challenge, however, lies not with the complexity of the material, which ranges in difficulty from easy to conceptually complex, but rather with the type of information communicated. Evans (1976) provided an interesting perspective on the differences between teaching most content-oriented courses in psychology and quantitative methods courses. In most content courses, we teach students to "know that," whereas in statistics we teach students to "know how." Evans draws the following apropos analogy: Teaching statistics via lecture and handouts, with a clear explication of concepts, is as useful as providing someone with a lecture and handout on how to ride a bicycle. The pedagogical challenge for statistics teachers is to move beyond the lectern, put away the static PowerPoint (the current equivalent of yellowing notes), and to try out some alternate teaching strategies.

Students also face new challenges when taking statistics or research methods courses for the first time. Unfortunately, students may perceive these challenges principally as threats versus opportunities. This point is particularly true for those students who may not utilize sophisticated learning techniques. If students have succeeded primarily by studying in spurts, memorizing materials, or relying heavily on recall for exams, they may find statistics to be difficult terrain to navigate. Hence, the familiar lament from struggling students that they feel "lost" in the course. If students cling to their traditional study methods and learning strategies, they may experience a drop in their usual performance level and hence, a subsequent drop in their self-efficacy in relation to the course, which can then spiral into a well of deepening frustration and potential failure. Therefore, statistics teachers might consider structuring their courses in ways that facilitate new and more adaptive learning strategies.

The aim of this book is to provide statistics teachers with the best information available to assist in the development or restructuring of their statistics course. We designed this book to meet the needs of both novice and seasoned teachers of statistics. In addition, we have created a companion Web site (www.teachstats.org) that contains additional instructional techniques, activities, topics, and resources. Throughout the book, we provide information concerning a range of topics from pedagogical methods and activities designed for teaching specific concepts to broader issues related to the unique learning needs of statistics students. We draw heavily on the small but growing empirical and scholarly literature related to the teaching of statistics in each chapter (Becker, 1996). As a result, this book extends beyond the content you might typically find in an instructor's manual. Our goal is to introduce you to the best practices in teaching statistics so that you can turn a potential course prison-the incoming perception of many students-into a pedagogical haven for learning.

So Why Teach Statistics?

Although statistics may be tangential to your primary area of research, it is beneficial to examine why the course is an important one to teach. After all, if you do not find meaning in the material, neither will your students. On the most transparent level, it simply is a good idea for everyone to have a basic understanding of statistics. In other words, knowledge of elementary statistics is an end goal in itself. In today's world, statistical literacy is fundamental given the tendency for the media, politicians, and corporate America to deluge us daily with quantitative information (Ben-Zvi & Garfield, 2004; Gal, 2004; Rumsey, 2002; Utts, 2003). Individuals need to be able to make sense of numerical information to avoid falling prey to the influence of data that looks incontrovertible simply because it is quantitative in nature. Over a half century ago, Wishart (1939), an early statistician, commented that the teaching of statistics is important because it protects individuals from the misleading practices of "the propagandists" (p. 549). It is just as important an issue today.

Two similes often describe the teaching of statistics. Hotelling (1940), perhaps best known for the multivariate technique called Hotelling's T, remarked that teaching students statistics is like teaching them to use a tool. More commonly, instructors comment that teaching of statistics is like teaching a foreign language (Hastings, 1982; Lalonde & Gardner, 1993; Walker, 1936). Both comparisons are insufficient, as they emphasize discrete skills that, once learned, students may fail to apply to other domains of knowledge or to the broader research process. Hence, one can learn to use a power sander and circular saw but not necessarily see any connection from those skills to building a doghouse. Students need to be able to apply their underlying knowledge to other contexts. We also do not want students to perceive statistics as a foreign language requirement only to be left unvisited once completed. It is imperative that students come to see statistics as a set of critical thinking skills and knowledge structures designed to enhance their ability to explore, understand, reason, and evaluate psychological science. In teaching the course, instructors need to make connections to material from other courses to emphasize the role that research methods and statistics plays in creating a foundation for the study of psychology as well as other...