A one semester hour lab course to be taken with or after the completion of the traditional freshman-sophomore level elementary statistics course is being developed. The lab guides the student through simple, but meaningful, experiments which illustrate important points of applied statistics. In each session the students discuss and perform an experiment, collect and analyze data, and write a report. The lab differs from traditional science labs in that the emphasis will be on statistical concepts. Students in the lab are being compared with a control group with regard to performance in elementary statistics and propensity to enroll in additional statistics courses. Student and teacher's manuals are being prepared; the materials will be pilot tested at another institution; and a national advisory committee is in place.
