Community College Instructors' and Students' Exploration of Simulation-based Statistical Inference

The purpose of this study was to investigate students’ thinking, reasoning, and views on simulation-based methods of statistical inference. In addition, the study examined instructors’ attitudes toward teaching hypothesis testing through computer simulations.
The study participants consisted of four statistics instructors and six students at a community college in Virginia. The instructors were interviewed about their experience with teaching statistics and their views on their students’ understanding of and difficulties with statistical inference. Afterwards, the instructors shared their reactions toward the simulations and provided recommendations on implementing simulation-based inference (SBI) in introductory statistics courses.
The students were presented with three tasks and were guided through the investigation process. After that, students were asked to share their views on simulations.
The instructor and student cases were examined in a cross-matrix to develop multi-case assertions. The results informed the researcher of several recommendations for future use of simulations for teaching hypothesis testing.