200 likes | 310 Views
Developing a Statistics Teaching and Beliefs Survey. The National Statistics Teaching Practice Survey Project (NSF DUE-0808862). Jiyoon Park Audbjorg Bjornsdottir Department of Educational Psychology. Overview. Statistics Teaching Inventory (STI)
E N D
Developing a Statistics Teaching and Beliefs Survey The National Statistics Teaching Practice Survey Project(NSF DUE-0808862) Jiyoon Park Audbjorg Bjornsdottir Department of Educational Psychology
Overview • Statistics Teaching Inventory (STI) • PIs: Joan Garfield, Robert delMas, and Andrew Zieffler • NSF funded project to develop, pilot, and gather validity evidence • Background of Statistics Teaching Inventory (STI) • Development of Instrument • Process of STI Validation • Psychometric validation • Interview validation • Validation Results • Future plans
Background of STI • Increasing calls for reform in undergraduate education in STEM disciplines • Implications for teaching and learning: • Students learn by constructing knowledge • Real-world problems provide effective ways to structure learning • Collaborative groups facilitate learning • Classroom discourse plays a critical role in learning • Well-designed technological tools can help students visualize and explore abstract concepts and processes.
Background of STI - continued • Reform in statistics • GAISE report endorsed by the ASA (2005) • http://www.amstat.org/education/gaise/ • GAISE recommendations: • Emphasize statistical literacy and develop statistical thinking. • Use real data. • Stress conceptual understanding rather than mere knowledge of procedures. • Foster active learning in the classroom. • Use technology for developing conceptual understanding and analyzing data. • Integrate assessments that are aligned with course goals to improve as well as evaluate student learning.
Background of STI - continued • Studies showing students’ lack understanding of statistical concepts and statistical reasoning • Teachers’ resistance to recommended ways of teaching • ARTIST project: need for instrument to use in research studies along with CAOS • INSPIRE project: need for data on teachers
Development of STI • Objectives of the STI • To assess practice and beliefs of teachers in introductory statistics courses • To pilot an instrument and integrate it into a database to explore the relationship between teaching and student learning in introductory statistics courses • Funding from NSF (ARTIST, INSPIRE, and STEPS grants, 2002-2010) • Support from two mini grants from Dept of Ed. Psych, University of Minnesota
Development of STI • Development process of the STI • The first version (102 items) • Pared down based on feedback from members of the statistics education community (e.g., the Research Advisory Board (RAB) of CAUSE) • Focus group conducted with faculty from the two different disciplines • Online pilot testing followed by focus group interviews • The resulting version of the STI administered to 101 participants of the 2009 US Conference on Teaching Statistics (USCOTS)
STI • The latest version of the STI: 50 multiple-choice items • Four sections • Teaching Practice • Assessment Practice • Teaching Beliefs • Assessment Belief Also, course characteristics and additional teacher information
STI - Examples • Part 1: Teaching Practice • e.g.) Small group discussions are used to help students learn. Never, Seldom, Some of the time, Most of the time, All of the time • Part 2: Course characteristics • e.g.) Please indicate the mathematical prerequisite for this course • Part 3: Assessment Practice • e.g.) My assessments evaluate students’ abilities to use formulas to produce numerical summaries of a data set. Disagree, Agree
Examples of the STI • Part 4: Teaching Beliefs • e.g.) Students learn statistics more effectively from a good lecture than from a good activity. Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree, Undecided • Part 5: Assessment Beliefs • e.g.) Alternative assessments (e.g., projects, presentations, minute papers) should be used to evaluate student learning. Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree, Undecided • Part 6: Additional information (demographic)
Data collection and Coding • Data collection for Pilot test • Administered to 101 participants of the 2009 US Conference on Teaching Statistics (USCOTS) • Responses
Validation Results – Psychometric Properties • Validation based on the Classical Test Theory • Examination of Reliability, individual item properties, and scale scores • Analysis results
Validation Results –Interview • Interview validation process • Interviewees: 16 instructors who participated in the STI • Face-to-face interview with 10 people at USCOTS • Phone interview with 6 people • Course syllabus and other course materials provided for validity evidence • Rating of interview based on the GAISE report • A consensus of rating reached from discussions with three professionals
Validation Results – Interview • Correlated 16 interviewees’ scores on the STI with their interview rating • Four outliers found: 2 of them are high on STI but low in interview; 2 of them are low on STI but high in interview • Indicates that these four responses on two measurements (STI & interview) do not match.
Validation Results – Interview • Why the outliers? • Thorough examination of interview recording and course materials • Some of them changed the course after taking the STI • Some of them have different ideas of use of technology or the teaching methods recommended in GAISE.
Conclusions • Psychometric validation of the STI supported through high value of Cronbach-alpha (>0.80) • The instructors sampled use a moderately reformed approach in teaching statistics • Difference between the mean scores for the Teaching Practice (0.58) and the Assessment Practice (0.74) which suggests
Discussion • Instructors have different conceptions in rating themselves • Their beliefs and practices were sometimes influenced by constraints • Revisions needed • some items have less than 0.30 (in item discrimination), one item has zero standard deviation • Mixed item format made the interpretation of the result inconsistent
Limitations • A larger sample is needed to make better statistical and psychometric analyses • Biased sample (USCOTS particpaints) • The coding of items and the scaling of scores regarding the mixed-item-format
Current work • Modular version with new parts for online and hybrid classes • International version, based on interviews at International Conference of Teaching Statistics (ICOTS) • National survey Fall 2011 (e-ATLAS project to NSF) • Linking STI results to new CAOS results (e-ATLAS) • Implementation of classroom observation rating instrument for further validation
Thank You parkx666@umn.edu audbjorgb@gmail.com Jiyoon Park Audbjorg Bjornsdottir Department of Educational Psychology