An Evaluation of Technology Integration in Teaching Statistics

Abstract

Teaching and learning in higher education has been influenced by the rapid rate of innovation in technology. A technology intervention was used to teach Foundation Statistics. This paper reports students’ performance relative to those taught statistics using traditional teaching methods. Failure rate was reduced from 34% with traditional teaching to only 14% with the inclusion of technology, and in order to measure students’ perception towards the integration of technology in the subject, a total of 144 students of 30 different nationalities were surveyed at the end of the semester before the final examination. The analysis of the survey highlighted the students’ positive perception independent of their overall performance. Overall, the survey expressed a significant result showing that the use of technology helped students to perform better.

Formulization of Using Technology in Teaching and Learning of Statistics

“…It is a technique used to understand, examine, and make anecdotes to be trusted stories. It plays a very important tool in research for inquiry findings (Tchantchane et al, 2012). From elementary college education, for example, statistics and probability is a crucial topic that needs to be taken in mathematics.…”

Factors Influencing Students’ Understanding of Basic Statistical Concepts

“…Many efforts have been made to investigate factors that affect a student's performance in a statistics course. These factors include instructors' knowledge (Callingham et al, 2016), the teaching and learning environment (Semukono et al, 2013), attitude (Naccache, 2012;Rochelle & Dotterweich, 2007), anxiety (Hoegler & Nelson, 2018;Hedges, 2017;Abd Hamid & Sulaiman, 2014), perceived ability or self-efficacy (Hoegler & Nelson, 2018;Lane et al, 2004), learning practices (Ariffin et al, 2014), learning behaviour (Luc Bude et al, 2007), teaching practices (Gundlach et al, 2015;Wilson, 2013), use of technology in learning (Tchantchane et al, 2012), gender (Monroe et al, 2011) and age (Dutton & Dutton, 2005).…”

A Internet como repositório de dados reais para o ensino de Estatística em cursos universitários

“…A integração da tecnologia é percebida pelos educadores como uma ferramenta muito importante para a prestação efetiva de ensino para todos os níveis de educação. Desta forma, o uso de planilhas eletrônicas e programas computacionais podem minimizar o ônus de elaborar fórmulas estatísticas e assim utilizar de forma mais efetiva o tempo para analisar, interpretar e justificar suas conclusões com base nos dados [17]. Soma-se a essas tecnologias a rede Internet, a qual permite a disseminação de informação e a construção do conhecimento pelas experiências em que a comunicação e colaboração possam predominar [18].…”