Fostering Students' Statistical and Scientific Thinking: Lessons Learned From an Innovative College Course

Abstract

Current research and theory indicate that college students' scientific and statistical reasoning skills are deficient, but can be improved through instruction. Accordingly, an innovative statistics course was developed for the undergraduate education curriculum at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. The course promoted the idea “that the purpose of statistics is to organize a useful argument from quantitative evidence based on a form of principled rhetoric” ( Abelson, 1995 , pp. xiii). Most instruction was anchored to mentored, small-group collaborative activities that simulated complex, real-life problem solving. In conjunction with the second offering, evidence of student growth was obtained from pre- and post-course interviews designed to assess students' ability to reason with statistical evidence from everyday sources. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses indicated that students made meaningful gains in their ability to reason statistically. Analyses also pointed to specific conceptual confusions, some related to course design. Students' reactions Io the course were variable.