TEACHING INTRODUCTORY STATISTICS: MORE DATA, LESS LECTURING

Abstract

Study conducted at the Northern University of Malaysia showed that the performance of the students in the Introductory Statistics course (TS 1013) were below expectation. All students in TS 1013 are required to take a 50 question Statistics Readiness Test during the first week of class. The test consists of multiple choice questions constructed to test knowledge of basic algebra and mathematical reasoning. The mean score is 64.5%. About 40% of the students score less than 60%. It was found that poor background in mathematics is a barrier for the students to score a good result in Introductory Statistics course. In this study, students with poor mathematics background were exposed with more data but less lecture. This task was accomplished by using SAS (Statistical Analysis System) software in teaching the course. The SAS system is a software system for data analysis and report wrting. The SAS system is available on many mainframes, minicomputers, and personal computers under a variety of operating systems. With base SAS software you can store data values and retrieve them, modify data, compute simple statistics, and create reports all in one SAS session. The Introductory Statistics course is redesigned by incorporating an appropriate SAS procedure in TS 1013.