A statistics talk will be given on Friday april 17th by Dr. Robert C. delMas at University of Minnesota.
Speaker: Robert C. delMas, PhD, Associated Professor, the Quantitative Methods in Education program, the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota.
Title: A comparison between a Randomization-based and Conventional Introductory Statistics Courses
Location: Room A-207 in building Aðalbygging on the UI campus
Time: Friday, April 17th, 2015, at 10:00 to 11:00.
Abstract:
Preliminary results are presented from an ongoing study of the development
of tertiary students’ reasoning in a one-semester college-level statistics
course. The modeling and simulation-based course relies on randomization
and bootstrap methods for inference. Students in the statistics course
learn to use TinkerPlots® to create "just by chance" models that form the
basis of simulated distributions of sample statistics in order to draw an
inference about an observed effect or difference. Comparisons of
performance between students enrolled in the modeling and simulation-based
course and students enrolled in statistics courses based on conventional
parametric methods of inference suggest that students taking the modeling
and simulation-based course have a better understanding of the principles
of study design and statistical inference. To provide a richer view,
summaries of qualitative data from nine students who participated in
think-aloud, problem-solving interviews are reported. Preliminary analyses
of the qualitative data indicate that these nine students had begun to
develop three of the four dimensions of statistical thinking described by
Wild and Pfannkuch (1999): the logic of inference, engagement in the
interrogative cycle, and integration of statistical and contextual
information.
About the Speaker:
Robert C. delMas is associated professor in the Quantitative Methods in
Education program within the Department of Educational Psychology at the
University of Minnesota. Dr. delMas's interests focus on the teaching and
learning of statistics, primarily at the tertiary level. He served as the
Editor of the Statistics Education Research Journal, as an Associate Editor
for the Journal of Statistics Education, on the Editorial Panel of the
Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, and as an advisor to the
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching StatWay project. He has
been co-PI on several projects funded by the U.S. National Science
Foundation including the Assessment Resource Tools for Improving
Statistical Thinking (ARTIST) assessment project, the Adapting and
Implementing Innovative Materials in Statistics (AIMS) curriculum project,
the Change Agents for Teaching and Learning Statistics (CATALST) curriculum
project, the Evaluation and Assessment of Teaching and Learning About
Statistics (e-ATLAS) project, and currently the Levels of Conceptual
Understanding in Statistics (LOCUS) assessment project that has developed
instruments for measuring the statistical conceptual understanding of K-12
students. More information about Dr. delMas may be found at his website,
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~delma001/.