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- Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 21:42:50 EST
- Reply-To: Bob Hayden <hayden@OZ.PLYMOUTH.EDU>
- Sender: Statistics Education Discussion <EDSTAT-L@NCSUVM.BITNET>
- From: Bob Hayden <hayden@OZ.PLYMOUTH.EDU>
- Subject: priorities
- Lines: 81
-
- Before the great lull there was some discussion of goals for a first
- course in statistics. It brought to mind this bit from a paper I did
- on writing for an MAA collection. Skip it if you've seen it.
-
- Bob Hayden
-
- ***************************************************************************
-
- I next asked myself what my students were likely to need to do
- with statistics after graduation. I tried to order these needs on
- the basis of how many of my students might have them. I hope you
- will pardon my listing those needs here, because they are
- relevant to all kinds of "book learning."
-
- 1. Virtually all of my students would need to evaluate
- quantitative information presented to them in newspapers,
- at zoning board meetings, by their doctor, or by numerous
- other sources. These students need to know what a mean or
- a standard deviation is or means. They need to know the
- strengths and weaknesses of these numbers as summaries.
- They need a healthy scepticism toward quantitative claims.
-
- 2. A smaller group of my students would need to evaluate the
- meaning and propriety of more technical statistical
- techniques that might be used by researchers in their own
- field.
-
- 3. A still smaller group of my students might need to
- evaluate statistical work done by subordinates or provided
- by consultants.
-
- 4. A very small group of my students might actually carry out
- a statistical study themselves. These students would
- certainly need to know how to pick an appropriate
- technique. They would almost certainly use a computer to
- carry out the mechanics of data storage, editing, and
- analysis.
-
- 5. An even smaller number of my students might one day need
- to carry out a large scale statistical study while
- stranded on a desert island, or at a remote wilderness
- location, or in some other situation in which a computer
- would be unavailable. These students would need to know
- how to perform the computations by hand.
-
- If we look at most statistics books, and most statistics courses,
- we find them organized as if my last group of students were the
- norm. Indeed, the whole pyramid is inverted. Few textbook
- problems deal with meaning or interpretation rather than
- computational technique.
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- --
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- _
- | | Robert W. Hayden
- | | Department of Mathematics
- / | Plymouth State College
- | | Plymouth, New Hampshire 03264 USA
- | * |
- / | (603) 536-2497
- | ) (603) 535-2489
- L_____/ hayden@oz.plymouth.edu
-