Livening up statistics teaching rooms by “LOL”

This interactive presentation by Meena Kotecha (The London School of Economics and Political Science) will commence with demystifying “LOL”.

It will share the key features and the impact of an innovative instruction method that was developed during a longitudinal study conducted specially to understand and address the following challenge:

Non-specialists (undergraduates enrolled on a range of degree programmes other than statistics) generally display negative attitudes towards the mandatory statistics courses which they are required to study as core modules of their respective degree programmes. Moreover, they report negative emotions linked to “statistics anxiety” despite having successfully completed A-Level mathematics or equivalent. This can impede their enthusiasm to engage with the courses, adversely affecting their academic performance and employment profile as a result. This presents a challenge to academics involved in delivering such courses.

The presentation will touch upon the research methodology specially developed for this study. Furthermore, the delegates will be able to hear from a few non-specialists about how the proposed instruction method transformed their attitudes towards engaging with statistics.

Academics from all related disciplines should be able to apply the proposed techniques to delivering any quantitative courses designed for non-specialists.  Furthermore, this should be of interest to statistics education researchers and all interested in the theme.

Location Details

CSSME Centre
10.81 E C Stoner Building
University of Leeds
Leeds
LS2 9JT

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