Undergraduate students outside Statistics major frequently take only one class of Basic Statistics or Introductory Statistics during their studies. As a consequence, many of them have little knowledge about advanced statistical methods, such as logistic regression, nonparametric procedures, and multivariate analysis, although they might need to…

Science does not belong to just one civilization, one culture, one country, or one gender; it belongs to all who want to unfold the mysteries of nature. Most scientists agree that science currently is, and indeed always has been, international and multicultural in character. Our teaching at all levels should reflect this multiculturalism as part…

Misconceptions hinder optimal student learning. They need to be addressed explicitly and formally to achieve effective teaching of economics. The author of this article outlines an activity that is designed to address misconceptions about "others" using a backward course design framework. Fink's significant learning categories,…

Dominant approaches to assessment have often limited students' ability to share their perspectives on course experiences. Further, assessment approaches are often disconnected from pedagogical practice and reinforce the status quo. In this article, we outline our critical-interpretive approach to a four-year cycle of assessments examining…

This article presents a novel approach to introducing principal component analysis (PCA), using summary tables and descriptive statistics. Given its applicability across a variety of academic disciplines, this topic offers abundant opportunity for class discussion and activities. However, teaching PCA in an introductory class can be challenging…

In introductory electric circuits in middle school, students often carry strongly held alternative conceptions. Common to many of these is an idea of electric current as some kind of substance that originates from the battery and moves toward electronic components. Learners often argue that current influences those one by one as they are…

Large parts of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) processes are automated. One example is the item values in the sales order process. To execute a sales order, the ERP system applies a specific "find" strategy on a wide variety of data sources such as customer master, material master, and customer price-specific data tables, and…

Data literacy for students in nonquantitative fields is important as statistics become the grammar of research and how the world's decisions are made. Statistics courses are typically offered by mathematics or statistics departments or by social and natural sciences such as economics, political science, psychology, and biology. Here we discuss how…

Introduction: Psychology instructors face decisions about adopting new approaches to lectures, readings, and assessment in their courses. Statement of the Problem: These choices about course structure can be both intimidating and confusing in terms of the costs and benefits for different options. Literature Review: As framed by anecdotal and…

We describe here a low-cost experiment for introductory physics students where they compare the physical properties of aluminum and steel by means of cantilever oscillations. This, in turn, allows the students to improve their physical intuition about these materials. Further, the students can apply their physics and mathematics knowledge and…

Given a peculiar sociocultural pressure for knowledge to reap immediate socioeconomic benefits in Africa, philosophy courses have gained a very low valuation by African students. They misperceive the courses not to be relevant to their future careers, leading to a lack of engagement with the courses. Focusing on South Africa, this paper proffers…

Using software to teach statistical inference in introductory courses opens the door for methods and practices that are more conceptually appealing to students. With an increasing number of fields requiring competency in statistics including data science, natural and social sciences, public health and more, it is crucial that we as instructors…

An unplugged approach to teaching enables students to explore Computational Thinking without using a computer. It might appear that if students are to learn programming, they should focus on computer-based work; however, it appears that using "unplugged" activities before engaging in computer-based coding (programming) activities for…

The economics profession has been working to become more open, inclusive, and welcoming. The introductory principles of economics courses provide a unique opportunity to teach students of the wider university the value of the field of economics. It is in this setting that instructors' interactions with students show them a welcoming and diverse…

To a student in introductory physics, using vectors is at best an exercise in bookkeeping. A two-dimensional kinematics problem effectively doubles the number of equations that a student must know, and invites the student to memorize factoids: "The horizontal motion is constant," "Gravity is only in the y-direction," etc. Force…