A Survey of the Teaching of Statistics in M.B.A. Programs

A survey of business schools was conducted to obtain information about the current state of the teaching of business statistics to students enrolled in M.B.A. degree programs. The survey was undertaken for and presented at a June 1986 conference on “Making Statistics More Effective in Schools of Business,” held at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business. Information was elicited concerning both the required statistics sequence and elective statistics courses for M.B.A. students, as well as computer usage in these courses. This article summarizes the information obtained from the survey.     

Bias in Routine Calculation of the Variance of OLS Estimators When the Disturbances are Autocorrelated

In this article a sequence of statistical games is described that were found useful for teaching statistics to agriculture students. The ideas of experimental design tend to be neglected in statistics service courses for agriculturalists because of the practical difficulty of allowing students to learn design by experience. Simulating experiments in the classroom or on the computer console is a viable alternative and should be more widely used. In this article, three games—TOMATO, CHICK, and SELECT—are described. Other games can be invented. The relevance of using games extends to fields other than agriculture.     

The Current Landscape of Teaching Analytics to Business Students at Institutions of Higher Education: Who is Teaching What?

Business analytics continues to become increasingly important in business and therefore in business education. We surveyed faculty who teach statistics or whose institutions offer statistics to business students and conducted web searches of business analytics and data science programs that are offered by these faculties associated with schools of business. The intent of the survey and web searches was to gain insight on the current landscape of business analytics and how it may work synergistically with data science at institutions of higher education, as well as inform the role that statistics education plays in the era of big data. The study presents an analysis of subject areas (Statistics, Operations Research, Management Information Systems, Data Analytics, and Soft Skills) covered in courses offered by institutions with undergraduate degrees in business analytics or data science influencing statistics taught to business students. Given the notable contribution of statistics to the study of business analytics and data science and the importance of knowledge and skills acquired in statistics-based courses not only for students pursuing a major or minor in the discipline, but also for all business majors entering the current data-centric business environment, we present findings about who is teaching what in business statistics education.     

Interactive graphics in a ternlhal-equlated classroom

Interactive computing is being used effectively as a teaching aid in mathematics classes at the University of Waterloo. Various courses, especially in statistics and computer science, are in¬volved* In this papers the configuration o£ equipment in trie terminal-equipped classroom, and an Interactive statistical graphics program package used for teaching, are described     

Elementary statistics laboratory

Students in elementary statistics traditionally see experiments and data as words and numbers in a text. They receive little exposure to the important statistical activities of sample selection, data collection, experimental design, development of statistical models, the need for randomization, selection of factors, etc. They often leave the first course without a firm understanding of the role of applied statistics or of the statistician in scientific investigations. In an attempt to improve elementary statistics education, we have developed a statistics laboratory similar to those of other elementary science courses. We will discuss our experiences in teaching a laboratory component with the traditional elementary statistics course. In each lab session, students, working in teams, discuss the design of an experiment, carry out the experiment, and analyze their data using Minitab on a Macintosh or MS-DOS based computer. The students then individually either answer a series of short answer questions or write a formal scientific report. The labs are designed to be relatively inexpensive and portable. They do not require a prior background in science, statistics or computing.     

治学报国:民国时期的统计留学生

民国时期统计留学生主要求学地分布在英美等国,其中既有专门研究数理统计方法的许宝騄等人,也有利用统计学方法研究生物学、经济学、教育学、社会学、心理学等问题的朱君毅、陈达、吴定良等人。这批统计留学生求学于当时的世界统计中心或顶尖大学,其中不乏令世界统计学界为之瞩目的杰出人才,以相对较小的规模取得了比肩国际一流水平的学术成就,为世界统计学发展贡献了中国智慧。他们的教育背景和学术水平,奠定了我国近代统计教育的较高起点和坚实基础,值得学术界深入挖掘和研究。其学术报国的家国情怀,至今仍是激励后辈学人的精神力量。     

Enhancing statistical education by using role-plays of consultations

Summary.  Role-plays in which students act as clients and statistical consultants to each other in pairs have proved to be an effective class exercise. As well as helping to teach statistical methodology, they are effective at encouraging statistical thinking, problem solving, the use of context in applied statistical problems and improving attitudes towards statistics and the statistics profession. Furthermore, they are fun. This paper explores the advantages of using role-plays and provides some empirical evidence supporting their success. The paper argues that there is a place for teaching statistical consulting skills well before the traditional post-graduate qualification in statistics, including to school students with no knowledge of techniques in statistical inference.     

Omnitab-a simple language for statistical computations

The OMNITAB system of computer programming provides a simple, yet extremely versatile means of communicating with the computer using simple English words and phrases, It is written in FORTRAN and is available for implementation on UNIVAC 1108, IBM 360, Burroughs 5500 and CDC 6600 equipment. It is based on a worksheet, stored in the computer, which is a two dimensional array easy to visualize even by beginners. The system has particular use for students of statistics, of all ages, in that it allows them to interact with the data without requiring that they master any diffiicult and esoteric (for statisticians) computer skills. The programming system is described together with several applications to statistical problems. Full program documentation is available from the authors.     

An Exercise in Analysis of Variance Theory

The use of interactive computer graphics by teachers of statistics is encouraged, both before class to prepare plots to be used as examples and “live” in a graphics-terminal-equipped classroom. Twenty-four examples of computer-generated plots used to teach the concepts and techniques of statistics are shown.     

Questions and Answers

I shall describe a practical classroom exercise in applied statistics, which has an impressive effect on the students who are beginning to learn statistics. This is based on a remarkable paper by Fisher (1934) on methods of ascertainment.     

Using the Bootstrap to Test for Symmetry Under Unknown Dependence

This article considers tests for symmetry of the one-dimensional marginal distribution of fractionally integrated processes. The tests are implemented by using an autoregressive sieve bootstrap approximation to the null sampling distribution of the relevant test statistics. The sieve bootstrap allows inference on symmetry to be carried out without knowledge of either the memory parameter of the data or of the appropriate norming factor for the test statistic and its asymptotic distribution. The small-sample properties of the proposed method are examined by means of Monte Carlo experiments, and applications to real-world data are also presented.     

Bayes and MCMC for Undergraduates

Students of statistics should be taught the ideas and methods that are widely used in practice and that will help them understand the world of statistics. Today, this means teaching them about Bayesian methods. In this article, I present ideas on teaching an undergraduate Bayesian course that uses Markov chain Monte Carlo and that can be a second course or, for strong students, a first course in statistics.     

对《统计学》函授教学的思考

对于统计学课程的教学,以往的探讨多是以普通大学生为对象,近年来,许多成人以函授的形式参与统计学的学习,如何对他们进行统计学的教学,这是一个值得关注的问题。     

Graduate Statistics Service Courses

This article describes our experience in, and recommendations for, teaching introductory statistics service courses to graduate students. Drawing on the student's research orientation, the instructor can present statistics as a valuable component of the scientific method, using examples from the student's particular discipline(s). Statistically qualified course instructors may be affiliated with statistics or other departments, and the course may be offered within any department. Course goals can range from training students to function independently as statistical analysts in future research to training students to consult a qualified statistician about design and analysis issues.     

Teach statistics? You bet!

The study of statistics has a reputation among students for being difficult, irrelevant, boring and an unwanted compulsory intrusion into their studies—and that reputation is sometimes deserved. But it does not have to be that way. John Croucher used sport and gambling to transform his lecture theatre, and turned the teaching of statistics into an astonishing Australian success story.     

Current challenges in statistics: large-lecture courses

Each semester approximately 80% of the students taught by the Florida State University Department of Statistics are enrolled in STA 3014: Fundamental Business Statistics. During the academic year this course is taught in large lecture sections of 250 students each. It is either the only statistics course or one of two statistics courses taken in their undergraduate career for probably 90% of these students. A similar situation exists in many statistics departments around the nation.

These large introductory courses offer us the opportunity to introduce the power of statistics to a large fraction of our future business leaders. In the past it appears that this opportunity has often been missed. In fact, some suggest that these courses help contribute to the general public's negative attitude toward statistics courses, the discipline of statistics, and statisticians.

Hence, I propose that one of the current challenges in statistics is the challenge of improving the quality of these courses so that statistics may contribute to the improvement of quality and productivity in the United States, a vital national issue. In this paper I report on my experiences in grappling with this challenge in STA 3014.     

Teaching statistics to elementary school students

We describe a short special statistics program presented to 24 students, ages 8 to II years, selected for their ability in mathematics. The contentof the program of the reactionsof the students are reviewed. we found that young studentscan grasp; understand and retainsimple statistical notionwhen inspired by gamesor newspaper or articals and that special programs; such as this one can help to improve studentsattitude towards mathematics in particularand school in general. ofofofancs^r-tionQf the students ars reviewed. We found that young students can grasp, understand, and retain simple statistical notions when inspired by games or newspaper articles and that special programs, such as this one, can help to improve students' attitudes toward mathematics in particular and school in general     

Projects in Introductory Statistics Courses

Introductory statistics courses should incorporate unstructured projects where students themselves generate the problems they choose to study, gather their own data, analyze the information using suitable computer software, and communicate their findings in a report. This article describes my experience with projects in the context of a large lecture course where projects are carried out in groups. Special problems that arise with group projects are discussed. Several successful student projects are described.     

Tips for Teaching Library Instruction and Information Literacy to First-Gen College Students,Nontraditional Students,or English as a Second Language (ESL) Students

Abstract

Librarians are charged with providing effective library instruction (i.e., how to utilize the library, how to conduct research, etc.) while also effectively teaching library users information literacy skills (how to interpret and evaluate the information they are accessing). Challenges that librarians face when trying to accomplish these tasks may include time constraints in the classroom, students who are not tech savvy, students who don’t understand library terminology, and students who don’t understand information literacy as a whole. The purpose of this article is to briefly describe scenarios that librarians could encounter when both teaching library instruction as well as teaching information literacy—scenarios that could hinder the learning processes for students and library users. Tips and suggestions are provided that can help librarians assess the diverse makeup of the class attendees to tailor their instruction session. Tips and suggestions are also provided to help librarians better engage students and users during library instruction and information literacy instruction.     

Ethical Numbers: Ethics Training in U.S. Graduate Statistics Programs, 2013–2014

As important members of research teams, statisticians bear an ethical responsibility to analyze, interpret, and report data honestly and objectively. One way of reinforcing ethical responsibilities is through required courses covering a variety of ethics-related topics at the graduate level. We assessed ethics requirements for graduate-level statistics training programs in the United States for the 2013–2014 academic year using the websites of 88 universities, examining 103 biostatistics programs, and 136 statistics degree programs. We categorized programs’ ethics training requirements as required or not required. Thirty-one (35.1%) universities required an ethics course for at least some degree students. Sixty-two (25.5%) degree programs required an ethics course for at least some students. The majority (77.4%) of required courses were worth 0 or 1 credit. Of the 177 programs without an ethics requirement, 19 (10.7%) listed an ethics elective. Although a single ethics course is insufficient for instilling an ethical approach to science, degree programs that model expectations through coursework point to the value of ethics in science. More training programs should prepare statisticians to consider the ethical dimensions of their work through required coursework. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.