{"title":"The development of statistical literacy among students: Analyzing messages in media articles with Gal's worry questions","authors":"D. Delport","doi":"10.1111/test.12308","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/test.12308","url":null,"abstract":"Real‐world data are fundamental to modern teaching methodologies that aim to improve statistical knowledge and reasoning in students. Statistical information is encountered in everyday life, such as media articles and involves real‐world contexts. However, information could be biased or (mis)represented and students should be concerned about the validity of such articles, as well as the nature and trustworthiness of the evidence presented, while considering alternative interpretations of the findings conveyed to them. Statistics educators could make use of media articles to create opportunities for students to reflect on such (mis)representations and build statistical literacy. The purpose of this article is to show how information and data on the Omicron COVID‐19 variant have been (mis)represented in the media and by government entities. I also demonstrate how these examples may be utilized in the statistics classroom as they relate to concepts covered in most basic statistics courses.","PeriodicalId":43739,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Statistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43667283","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A primer on simple measures of association taught at undergraduate level","authors":"J. Allison, L. Santana, I. Visagie","doi":"10.1111/test.12307","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/test.12307","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses and contrasts the measures of association introduced by Pearson, Spearman, and Kendall, as these are the three most commonly used in practice and also the ones primarily covered in introductory statistics courses. Emphasis is placed on concepts pertaining to the measurement of the level of association between two variables, the calculation of the coefficients, and the interpretation of the calculated values. In particular, we demonstrate how Spearman's rho and Kendall's tau can be expressed in terms of Pearson's correlation coefficient based on transformed data. Important concepts and potential pitfalls are illustrated using numerical examples.","PeriodicalId":43739,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Statistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43994952","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Teaching chance for real","authors":"H. MacGillivray","doi":"10.1111/test.12306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/test.12306","url":null,"abstract":"This should read “teaching probability for real” but that would not attract as much attention, and attention is needed more than ever. Although most recent and most appalling news has been focussed elsewhere, readers may have seen reports on the severe flooding in Australia, in Queensland and New South Wales (NSW) regions. To give you some idea, Brisbane received 80% of its average annual rainfall in 3 days, and the flood mitigation dam built after the 1974 floods held back “four Sydney harbours worth of water”. The town of Lismore in northern NSW is no stranger to floods, but this flood was 2-3 m above all previous records, peaking at a new record height of 14.4 m. Flooding had also been experienced in some of the same regions a year ago. For the second year in a row, therefore, much has been written and debated in the media about floods, with politicians claiming it was a 1-in500 year or 1-in-1000 year flood (see, for example, Bureau of Meteorology shoots down NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet’s ‘one-in-1000-year’ flood claim j Sunrise (7news.com.au)), and with both risk assessment experts and media commentators saying that giving risk as “1-in-100 years” is “disastrous and meaningless”, accompanied by repeated explanations of what it means and what it does not. Some years ago, a medical specialist colleague whose work requires almost daily explanations to individual women of risks, both of future health and associated with treatments, told me that she now always gives risks in terms of probabilities, usually as percentage chance, having realised some considerable time ago that explaining in terms of 1-in-100 or 1-in-1000 was misleading and unfair to patients. Before readers reach for various pieces of literature to quote expertise to contradict the above, I am not advocating removing such expressions from teaching, as they play a valuable part in an overall, better balanced and less limiting approach. There are a number of useful lessons and messages in unpacking the above, but two key messages and advocacies are that:","PeriodicalId":43739,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Statistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47507348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The “p‐hacking‐is‐terrific” ocean ‐ A cartoon for teaching statistics","authors":"Ding-Ying Guo, Yue Ma","doi":"10.1111/test.12305","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/test.12305","url":null,"abstract":"P‐hacking is fishing for statistical significance through repeated testing on massive data. It would lead to spurious findings, misguide social practice and policy making, and thus should be avoided. Teaching about p‐hacking is important, yet challenging. Cartoons are effective edutainment tools to engage students in learning statistical concepts. We created a cartoon and discussed how to use it in teaching about p‐hacking by guiding students to think and answer a list of questions. This cartoon can be helpful with teaching both statistics courses and applied seminar courses in various other disciplines. Students are expected to gain a better understanding of multiple issues related to p‐hacking, including its occurrence due to repeated testing, the problems with using an arbitrary threshold for the P‐value and comparing statistical significance, the distinction between statistical vs scientific significance, the approach for interpreting testing results with a holistic view, and the strategies to avoid p‐hacking.","PeriodicalId":43739,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Statistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48861810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Laura Taylor, Kirsten Doehler, Ryne VanKrevelen, M. Weaver, Aaron Trocki
{"title":"A case study of strategies for intentionally building course community to support diverse learners in an introductory statistics course","authors":"Laura Taylor, Kirsten Doehler, Ryne VanKrevelen, M. Weaver, Aaron Trocki","doi":"10.1111/test.12303","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/test.12303","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents a multi‐part initiative to support diverse learners by building class community and peer networks in an introductory statistics course. This was accomplished through multiple techniques, such as implementing icebreaker questions and using randomly assigned student working groups. The Socrative online software utilized regularly by instructors allowed students to be randomized into groups to collaboratively answer questions provided by the instructors. A multi‐part group project was also administered where students worked cooperatively to analyze swim race data from the 2016 Olympics. Students completed a pre‐semester survey in which they provided feedback on previous mathematics or statistics courses related to the level of course engagement, the benefit of group learning, and their ability to discuss course content during class. A post‐semester survey was administered to answer similar questions regarding the statistics course they were currently taking.","PeriodicalId":43739,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Statistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43958574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A comparison of limited vs unlimited attempts with online homework grades in introductory statistics courses","authors":"P. Stewart","doi":"10.1111/test.12304","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/test.12304","url":null,"abstract":"Online homework programs allow professors to preset how many attempts per homework problem each student is allowed to have. Some professors prefer to allow a limited number of extra attempts, and others prefer to allow students to have an unlimited number of extra attempts. Do these preferences lead to a difference in average homework grades? To study this question, seven statistics courses over the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters were analyzed. The Fall semester had a limited number of extra attempts for each homework problem, and the Spring semester had an unlimited number of extra attempts. The results of the study conclude that there is no statistically significant difference in average homework grades for most homework assignments. In any homework assignment with a statistically significant difference, there was a quantifiably small difference.","PeriodicalId":43739,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Statistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49408400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Characteristics of statistical literacy skills from the perspective of critical thinking","authors":"Shunya Koga","doi":"10.1111/test.12302","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/test.12302","url":null,"abstract":"Statistical literacy is generally defined as the ability to interpret and evaluate statistical information critically. It is regarded as a higher‐order literacy competence that includes critical thinking. While previous studies have illustrated the concept of statistical literacy, statistical literacy skills have not been sufficiently explored from the perspective of critical thinking research. To fill this gap, this study presents a framework for critical thinking skills in statistical literacy. The characteristics of general critical thinking skills were organized. Based on these characteristics, the researcher extracted sentences related to such skills from selected textbooks. As a result, eight aspects of critical thinking skills in statistical literacy were identified.","PeriodicalId":43739,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Statistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42755057","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Statistical edutainment: A means to vary how we teach summary statistics","authors":"D. Pearl, L. Lesser","doi":"10.1111/test.12301","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/test.12301","url":null,"abstract":"Edutainment fun items can engage students in discussing and learning key concepts about descriptive statistics.","PeriodicalId":43739,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Statistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42828916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"International Association for Statistical Education Announcements","authors":"","doi":"10.1111/test.12296","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/test.12296","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43739,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Statistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45665741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}