Mathematical Sciences (21) This initiative is working to improve achievement and to change attitudes for students who take a first statistics course in either high school or college. The project uses a model for learning in statistics which suggests that career-specific discovery learning will enhance outcomes for students. Supplementary materials are being developed to streamline classroom implementation of the model. These include a faculty guidebook to help design discovery-learning projects and a workbook of introductory level problems from specific majors. Project objectives include: (1) development of the model, (2) development of the supplementary materials, (3) evaluation of pilot test results, and (4) dissemination of results and materials. The project materials and the evaluation instruments are being developed first and then they are being validated in a pre-pilot test. Next, a treatment vs. control design is utilized during the full pilot phase to test the model, with pilot sites including a two-year college, a high school, and four-year college classes. Dissemination includes journal article(s), several presentations at professional meetings, and two large-scale workshops.
The broader impact of this project enhances learning outcomes in and attitudes toward statistics. The course design connects authentic, statistics-based inquiry to specific career interests and facilitates transference of mathematics concepts. The students are not, in general, science majors in college, but they need and use statistics and include many high school students. The initiative fosters collaboration between mathematics and other departments, especially those in the social and behavioral sciences, business, education and health sciences.
