Abstract
This interactive session will involve discussions of how to pose good research questions, choosing appropriate methods for specific research questions, and other aspects of getting started in statistics education research. We will begin by looking the questions that USCOTS participants contribute (either before or during the conference) on what research questions they (as teachers of statistics) want to have answered. A panel of researchers will discuss how to reformulate these questions to insure that they are manageable and researchable questions. Examples will be offered of how of narrow down and refine questions that begin as general, broad questions.
Presenters/Facilitators
Joan Garfield - The University of Minnesota
Beth Chance - Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
Cliff Konold - The University of Massachusetts
Bio-Sketches
Joan Garfield is Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota where she heads a graduate program in Statistics Education. She is the CAUSE Associate Director for Research, and co-chair of the International Research Forums on Statistical Reasoning, Literacy and Thinking. She is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. She is the editor or co-editor of four books on statistics education and has published numerous articles and book chapters on teaching and learning statistics. She currently co-directs the NSF-funded ARTIST project (Assessment Resource Tools for Improving Statistical Reasoning) and co-chairs the ASA-funded GAISE project (Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistical Education).
Beth Chance is an Associate Professor of Statistics at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. She is a co-author of the Workshop Statistics series of coursebooks, served as a co-editor of STATS: The Magazine for Students of Statistics, and has given dozens of presentations and workshops on statistics education both nationally and internationally. She is currently serving as co-editor of the proceedings for the Seventh International Conference on Teaching Statistics (ICOTS-7).
Beth received her Ph.D. in Operations Research, with an emphasis in Statistics and a minor in Education, from Cornell University. She taught at University of the Pacific before moving to Cal Poly. She serves on the Test Development Committee for Advanced Placement Statistics and as the Secretary/Treasurer of the ASA Section on Statistical Education. She was the inaugural recipient of the ASA's Waller Education Award, and she received the 2003 Mu Sigma Rho Statistical Education Award.
Cliff Konold is Associate Research Professor in the Scientific Reasoning Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he has directed numerous projects focused on understanding and developing statistical reasoning. He currently directs the NSF-funded Tinkerplots project, which is developing data-analysis software and curriculum materials for the middle school. This work builds on his many years of research studying how both young children and adults reason about chance and data and on the role technology can play in the development of their thinking.