Introductory Statistics Textbooks and the GAISE Recommendations

The six recommendations made by the Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) committee were first communicated in 2005 and more formally in 2010. In this article, 25 introductory statistics textbooks are examined to assess how well these textbooks have incorporated the three GAISE recommendations most relevant to implementation in textbooks (statistical literacy and thinking; use of real data; stress concepts over procedures). The implementation of another recommendation (using technology) is described but not assessed. In general, most textbooks appear to be adopting the GAISE recommendations reasonably well in both exposition and exercises. The textbooks are particularly adept at using real data, using real data well, and promoting statistical literacy. Textbooks are less adept—but still rated reasonably well, in general—at explaining concepts over procedures and promoting statistical thinking. In contrast, few textbooks have easy-usable glossaries of statistical terms to assist with understanding of statistical language and literacy development. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

Stochastic metafrontiers

ABSTRACT

We consider the case of production units arranged into a number of groups. All units within a group choose output–input combinations from the same production possibilities set that is represented by a stochastic frontier model. The metafrontier is the envelope of the group-specific frontiers. We are interested in the metafrontier distance, which is the amount by which the group-specific frontier lies below the metafrontier.

Previous work has measured the metafrontier distance using the deterministic portion of the frontier. In a stochastic frontier model, this is not appropriate. We show how to evaluate the metafrontier distance, and we demonstrate the empirical relevance of this issue.     

Re-examining two tests for bivariate normality

Many goodness of fit tests for bivariate normality are not rigorous procedures because the distributions of the proposed statistics are unknown or too difficult to manipulate. Two familiar examples are the ring test and the line test. In both tests the statistic utilized generally is approximated by a chi-square distribution rather than compared to its known beta distribution. These two procedures are re-examined and re-evaluated in this paper. It is shown that the chi-square approximation can be too conservative and can lead to unnecessary

rejection of normality.     

Depoliticising literature,politicising diversity: ethno-racial boundaries in Dutch literary professionals’ aesthetic repertoires

Although still a neglected area, over the years a growing body of sociological research on the position of ethno-racial minorities in Western artistic fields has emerged. With this article we aim to contribute to this research area by focusing on ethno-racial diversity in the Dutch literary field. Through in-depth interviews, we analyse how gatekeepers mobilise specific cultural repertoires and by doing so draw ethno-racial boundaries when discussing acquisition, assessing quality and positioning themselves in the literary field. We argue that literary publishers and other professionals (selectively) employ an ‘old school’ modernist repertoire that especially values the formal aspects of literary products, by which non-white writers and publishers concerned with diversity are often positioned in an identity politics framework. Their work is said to take in a less prestigious ‘political’/’subjective’ position rather than a ‘literary’/‘universal’ one. As such, this paper informs on how gatekeepers’ practices shape the position of non-white authors in the Dutch literary field.     

Solving Current Social Challenges: Engaging Undergraduates in Policy Practice

This article explores an innovation in teaching policy practice at the undergraduate level. It analyzes an experiential learning model that uses current social challenges as a compelling way to generate student learning about policy practice. Over the course of the semester, students examine antecedents, current issues, and potential solutions to a contemporary social issue through a series of assignments that build knowledge and skills and link the topic to larger social policy concerns. Using quantitative and qualitative evidence from seven semesters, the article explores benefits and challenges of this approach to teaching, and derives lessons for social work education.     

Achtsamkeit lernen im Offenen Dialog

Dialogue in the sense of David Bohm invites individuals and groups to consider together their ways of thinking and learning. By exploring mental models, which usually hinder reaching deeper agreement, this kind of dialogue opens new grounds and is, at the latest, since Peter Senge’;s management-bestseller “The fifth discipline” (1990), considered to be a basic process for team learning in groups and organisations. The article refers to university projects on ‘open dialogue’ with students at the universities of Oldenburg and Bochum between 2001–2003. Characteristics of “open dialogue” are represented as ways of attentiveness learning. Students practical reports are used to work out recommendations based upon “open dialogue” for the development of central deep ecology and human competences.     

Muslim and Non‐Muslim Differences in Female Autonomy and Fertility: Evidence from Four Asian Countries

On the basis of research on paired Muslim and non‐Muslim communities selected in India, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines, the authors test the hypothesis that greater observed Muslim pronatalism can be explained by less power or lower autonomy among Muslim women. Indeed, wives in the Muslim communities, compared to the non‐Muslim ones: 1) had more children, 2) were more likely to desire additional children, and 3) if they desired no more children, were less likely to be using contraception. However, the authors do not find that Muslim communities consistently score lower on dimensions of women's power/autonomy. Thus, aggregate‐level comparisons provide little evidence of a relationship between lower autonomy and higher fertility. Individual‐level multivariate analysis of married women in these paired settings similarly suggests that women's autonomy differentials do not account for the higher fertility, demand for more children, and less use of contraception among Muslim wives. These results suggest that explanations for Muslim/non‐Muslim fertility differences lie elsewhere.