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Teaching Implementation

Who is it for?

Introduction to Statistics is a teaching resource for all students needing a basic understanding of statistics. This includes all areas of study that have to summarize and describe quantitative data or deal with sampled, numerical data, such as psychology, social sciences, biology, geography, nursing studies and mathematics.

The program runs on a network or on individual computers.

How can I use it?

One possible teaching approach, among many, is as follows:

– the tutor prepares lessons using preselected screens from the CD-ROM for illustration

– students then read relevant sections of the printed Open Learning Units

– the program, including its test questions, is made freely available to students either in class sessions or for private study

– the 'study plan' facility is used by the tutor to direct learning by compiling subsections to be studied at a particular stage of the course and not necessarily following the sequence built into the program

– it can also be used to guide revision or project work by directing students' attention to areas that seem to be giving difficulty

– the tutor can, at any time, monitor the progress of individual students or the whole class with the program's tools

– students being taught with the program can buy personal copies for use on their own computers if they wish to

What are the benefits?

The program allows students to pace their learning and to commit their 'sins' in private, whilst the tutor can track their progress. Gone is the dread of being left behind by failing to grasp a simple point.

Test questions give immediate feedback and errors can be traced and faced.

The screen presents material in an attractive, visual way, with economy of words. Examples are designed to amuse as well as instruct.

Transformations of data happen before your eyes, with columns of numbers turning into scatterplots, stem-and-leaf diagrams, histograms, and so on. Talk becomes action.

How will it help me?

Statistics is not the easiest subject either to teach or to learn and students require lots of individual help. Many of the reasons for this have little to do with statistics. But some necessary mathematical operations can lead to errors that get in the way of understanding.

This is where the program is most helpful. Not only does it offer, through graphics, clear explanations of the concepts but pictures are less threatening than words. And students can track backwards and forwards as many times as they wish and can test their understanding immediately, stage by stage, thus overcoming individual sticking points. It offers a form of customized learning to replace the one-to-one tuition that statistics ideally requires.