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At my alma mater, statistics was taught almost using definitions, and a few bare bone examples about coins and multiple supposedly identical machines producing
by tgv 4y ago
At my alma mater, statistics was taught almost using definitions, and a few bare bone examples about coins and multiple supposedly identical machines producing something. It was boring, and I remember the difficulty overcoming the use of linear algebra, but most of us got it. Then again, we were CS and EE students.
At the faculties of two other universities where I worked, statistics was taught at a lower level, with as few formulas as possible, and a great number of examples, often with (subsets of) real data, directly related to the topics they were studying. Most students did not get it, many failing their exams multiple times. Then again, they were psych students. There was only a handful with some of interest in statistics, and they usually went on to study cognitive/experimental psychology.
There's no method that suits all, and not every student should be expected to reach the same level. It's ok if students don't master anything beyond the most basic of maths. It's a pity, but considering that many leave secondary education barely literate, it's not high on my list of priorities.
- stocknoob 4y agoThe larger problem is that these subjects aren't studied for their own sake. They are obstacles on the way to a degree. If people wanted to learn, they'd clearly go back after the course finished, and fill in the gaps. Much like you'd have a dentist fill in the cavities they found. You don't want a painful gap in your stats understanding, right? But that isn't done. Unfortunately, the point of stats class is to pass stats class, not learn stats. The students are only responding to incentives, and society (in general) does not care about long-term understanding. You scrape by, say you "passed" -- like being fit 30 years ago -- and that's enough for the HR screen. Nobody ever follows-up.