The GAISE College Report: The American Statistical Association Meets Sound Pedagogy in Central Virginia

Research in undergraduate statistics education often centers on the introductory course required for a large percentage of college students. While acknowledging the diverse setting, audience, and purpose of introductory courses, existing research assumes that courses offered by different disciplines share the same goals and teaching practices. The purpose of this study is to examine the objectives for student outcomes and pedagogical delivery of introductory statistics courses in various academic departments to provide explicit evidence for this assumption. The American Statistical Association's Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) are meant to apply to all introductory courses. The College Report's Goals for Students and Recommendations for Teaching are used as a framework for a qualitative study of the way in which introductory courses in various settings deliver instruction. Four descriptive case studies are presented through a patternmatching analysis followed by a cross-case analysis. All four cases demonstrate many of the goals and teaching strategies recommended by GAISE, even though none of the professors had prior knowledge of the guidelines. The goal that students be able to critique published statistics resonated with participating instructors but was barely evident in any of the courses. The recommendation to use real data had the least evidence in all cases. Emphasis on statistical literacy and thinking as well as stress on conceptual understanding aligned with GAISE in every case. This study supports the GAISE assumption that its goals for students and recommendations for teaching are broad enough to apply to introductory courses in a variety of disciplines.

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