Teaching the gospel of statistics
by
Dave Saville
Statistics Group, AgResearch, Lincoln, New Zealand

(1) "How do statisticians think?" (2) Is there any rhyme or reason behind the apparently jumbled collection of ad hoc recipes which confront the average student of statistics? (3) How can the widespread "fear and even hatred" of statistics be turned into "familiarity, confidence, interest and even liking?"

Addressing such issues involves dedicated missionary work. In this paper I describe my experiences with a series of elementary and/or "remedial" statistics workshops which I have been developing for the last 24 years. The design criteria for these workshops are as follows. (1) Provide a non-threatening, friendly, suitable physical environment which is conducive to learning. (2) "Start at the beginning." (3) Allow students to ëxperience the variation" by randomly selecting data from data sets which I provide. (4) Ask each student to work through their own example after I have worked through one on the white board ("no pain, no gain"). (5) Allow the students to create their own histograms of class results and "discover" statistical truths for themselves. (6) Use such simulations of various "true scenarios" as a natural setting for concepts such as standard errors of (a) means, (b) differences between means and (c) regression slopes, plus power, required sample size, and so on. (7) Allow plenty of time for wide-ranging discussions of issues raised by the workshop participants (challenging but fun). [Further details of the workshops are given in Saville (2001).]

In my opinion, such educational work is the most important function of statisticians working in an applied science organisation. One very practical reason is that without good communications and goodwill between statisticians and applied scientists, our very livelihood is under threat!

Reference
Saville, D.J. (2001). A hands-on, interactive method of teaching statistics to agricultural researchers. In: C. Batanero (Ed.), Training Researchers in the Use of Statistics (pp 197-213). Granada, Spain: International Association for Statistical Education and International Statistical Institute.

Date received: September 6, 2001