Open book assessment is not a new idea, but it does not seem to have gained ground in higher education. In particular, not much literature is available on open book examinations in mathematics and statistics in higher education. The objective of this paper is to investigate the appropriateness of open book assessments in a first-year business…

The National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) was asked by Technical and Further Education (TAFE) Directors Australia to consider, in a discussion paper for their conference held on the Gold Coast in September 2009, how a "tertiary education" sector impacts on the way people think about research and statistics. While a…

An approach to introduce statistics in psychology to the beginning student in an appealing and interest-provoking manner is to discuss the correlation of statistical values or contrasts in values. (Author/ND)

In order to learn the concept of statistical techniques one needs to run real experiments that generate reliable data. In practice, the data from some well-defined process or system is very costly and time consuming. It is difficult to run real experiments during the teaching period in the university. To overcome these difficulties, statisticians…

The students in a basic course on probability and statistics in Trinidad demonstrated that the number of fatal highway accidents appeared to follow a Poisson distribution while the length of time between deaths followed exponential distribution. (MN)

Student volunteers arrange themselves according to height, weight, and grade point average, and in 15 to 20 minutes, a number of statistical concepts are introduced and worked with in an introductory statistics course. (MLW)

A grouping procedure which systematically combines objects to satisfy a criterion specified by the investigator and groups those objects that are most alike first is discussed. Two such methods that can be easily demonstrated in the classroom setting with the aid of electronic calculators are presented. (MN)

Indexing is a tool that can be used with longitudinal, quantitative data for analysis of relative changes and for comparisons of changes among items. For greater accuracy, raw financial data should be deflated into constant dollars prior to indexing. This paper demonstrates the procedures for indexing, statistical deflation, and the use of…

Brown's 1933 diagnostic test was used as a screening examination for 79 psychology students to determine their areas of weakness in statistical calculations, and to see whether the difficulties of a previous era have been changed by methods of teaching mathematics today. General similarities were found. (LBH)

This annual report includes totals of graduates from American Chemical Society approved schools for 1978. The number of bachelors, masters, and doctorates increased by 1.5 percent, 7 percent, and 2 percent, respectively. (BB)

Statistics tend to become interesting to non-methodologists when taught in a research context that is relevant to them. Real data sets supplemented by sufficient background information can provide just such a context. Despite this, many textbook authors and instructors of applied statistics rely on artificial data sets to illustrate statistical…

Data presented in the tables of this document are derived from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering taken in the fall of 1996. All eligible institutions are included in the survey for the years 1988-96. From 1984-87, the survey design…

The resource guide is designed to accompany a manual for students described in SO 009 851. The purpose of the manual is to provide the undergraduate with an overview of the data collected by the Bureau of the Census. To make the manual more effective, this resource guide supplements listings of Census Bureau materials, and indicates how census…

A visual display is introduced that enables one to compare the predictive validities of all possible non-negatively weighted sums of two predictors. This two-predictor validity curve assesses the level of predictability of a criterion from composites of two predictors. Derivations are presented for the general case. For illustrative purposes, the…

Traditional elementary statistics instruction for non-majors has focused on computation. Rarely have students had an opportunity to interact with real data sets or to use questioning to drive data analysis, common activities among professional statisticians. Inclusion of data gathering and analysis into whole class and small group activities…