Taking statistics outside the classroom: researching the community

Abstract

Oftentimes, students who take (mandatory) Introductory Statistics fail to see the value of statistics for society, or for their future careers. In order to make statistics more valuable to students and show them how statistical results are put into use in the immediate region, community based group projects were introduced to students in the Netherlands. This paper reports the outcome of an evaluation of these projects. The results show that students who took part in these projects report higher self confidence and math skills and they more firmly believe in future use of statistics. Furthermore, after finishing the project they value statistics better and they believe it is less difficult. Most importantly however, the grades of students who participated in group projects improved compared to students who did not take part in any student projects in their course. Evaluations show that students start to see the added value of statistics.