CANDACE SCHAU

Context: I taught introductory statistics to graduate students in a College of Education for over 20 years. My classes contained 15 to 30 students and met twice a week for 1.25 hours per session. Most of the students in my classes were working toward Masters degrees in Education (although some were working toward Ph.D. degrees), most were in the course because it was required, and almost all did not want to be in the course. Most of the students held jobs, had significant others, and considered receiving their degrees (with a grade point of 4.0) as essential but usually third in importance (with loved ones first and jobs second). Because so many already were established in jobs (and in their lives) and felt as though they performed them well without ever reading research or understanding the statistics found in every day life, they viewed my introductory statistics course as the most difficult educational hurdle they faced and not very relevant to them. When I first started teaching, I really had hoped that my one introductory course would convince them that statistics is important in their lives. Given my students and their situations, however, that was a dream born from my ignorance (and, I'm sorry to say, my arrogance). For the last several years that I taught, I really hoped to accomplish a few more realistic (for my students) goals. By the end of my course, I wanted my students to: Develop a foundational understanding of important introductory statistical concepts and their uses.

Learn that they could understand a discipline that involved numbers, if they worked hard.

I also hoped that a few students would really like statistics and recognize its value to them and so decide to take additional statistics courses that were not required. My course assessments, however, were designed to assess the first goal.