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Summary of Final Report
on the MeaNs Project Contents
Introduction
Aims of the Project
Methodology
Resources Used
Outcomes
and recommendations for local action
Lessons
learned worthy of wider dissemination
General
Specific
Introduction
The MeaNs
Project was funded by the Department for Education and
Employment for the two years from 1 April 1996 to 31 March
1998. Regular three monthly detailed evaluation reports have been
prepared during the project; this is a summary of the final
report on the work done by the project.
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Aims of the
Project
The aims of the project were
to:
• identify the
statistical skills and knowledge which are needed by specialist
and non-specialist statisticians and by those who work with them,
• identify examples of
good statistical training and assessment practice,
• promote a closer
correspondence between training and assessment in Higher
Education (HE) and employment needs, based on the findings of the
above aims,
• provide a forum for
discussion, dissemination and research collaboration, making full
use of electronic, as well as more traditional, means of
communication,
• lay foundations for
enabling the network to extend into more HE contexts where
statistics is taught.
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Methodology
The project was organised in
four overlapping stages. These were: obtaining information,
bringing people together, disseminating findings and continuing
co-operation.
Information was obtained in many ways. We asked people for help on the Allstat, Edstat-l and (later) the teaching-statistics electronic mailbases, and made announcements in RSS News and the CTI Mathematics and Statistics newsletter. Letters were sent to recent graduates of the statistics departments of two of our partnership universities. Visits were made to some employers and we attended interviews for Civil Service statisticians. We analysed job advertisements and obtained and read all the relevant literature we could find (including DfEE reports on the Enterprise in Higher Education projects).
We conducted four different surveys. The first collected data on job advertisements for statisticians; the second came from a direct mailing of 30 employers who had expressed an interest in the MeaNs project; the third was a questionnaire sent to all the university statistics departments and the fourth was an investigation of the provision of fee-paying post-graduate courses to get an indication of what may be included at undergraduate level.
We also continually searched the Internet for material and sites with information relevant to the project.
People were brought together in a series of four workshops in different parts of the country. This also brought us in more information. A new mailbase, means@mailbase.ac.uk, was set up and the project team seeded discussion questions on to this list. A special seminar on graphicacy was arranged to bring together people from across academic disciplines.
Findings were disseminated through two newsletters, through Web pages set up especially for the project, by preparing articles for publication, by speaking at national and local meetings organised by ASLU, the RSS, etc. and by a final conference in Nottingham in February 1998. The final conference also enabled people to get together and brought us in more information. The papers presented to this conference, summaries of the four workshops, reports of the visits and of the four surveys together with many other useful pieces of information are published on our web pages (http://science.ntu.ac.uk../means.html).
Continuing co-operation is
being encouraged through the ongoing work of the RSS Centre
for Statistical Education, through the MeaNs
mailbase, through the articles to be published and through the
RSS's contacts with the University for Industry initiative
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Resources
used
As well as the funding from DfEE
we have been able to draw on a large number of other resources -
usually free. We have had access to the general resources of the RSS
Centre for Statistical Education and the University of
Nottingham. In particular we have used their computer
networks for email, electronic discussion lists and our Web pages.
Printing was done at the University Print Unit. We used the
conference facilities at Derby Hall in the University of
Nottingham. SPSS sponsored a workshop and our final
conference. The Royal Statistical Society and the University
of Glasgow provided rooms for our workshops. The Royal
Statistical Society also allowed us to include our newsletters
with the mailing of their RSS News, as did the CTI
Mathematics and Statistics Centres with their newsletter.
Many individuals - employers, recent graduates and university
lecturers have given of their time and expertise towards the
project's work. Our two Sheffield partner universities
supplied details of recent graduates; Nottingham Trent
University gave access to their Communication course.
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Outcomes and
recommendations for local action
The project has produced newsletters, reports of workshops and visits to employers, a mailbase discussion list, Web
pages with a wide range of resources including reports on the four different
surveys conducted
and information about further electronic and other resources germane to the MeaNs project's
themes. Articles have been published, others prepared for
publication and we have spoken at local and national conferences
of statisticians. All universities need to accept the importance
of statistical awareness as a key skill relevant to nearly every
discipline, and the teaching of statistics should be enhanced.
The RSS Centre will continue to push these issues as well as
provide pedagogic support.
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Lessons learned
worthy of wider dissemination
There were general lessons
learned about carrying out such a project and lessons specific to
the teaching of statistics.
In general we found that Round Table discussions were a useful way of getting information and promoting discussion. Electronic discussion lists need a lot of input to get discussion going and are not used as widely by employers as they are by academics. It takes a lot of resources and effort to change university attitudes towards teaching their courses - the level of input from the DfEE through the networks is only enough to start things moving. The recent rapid increase in number of students and the Research Assessment Exercise have stretched the resources in many departments and made it harder to contemplate changing the teaching. It may be that the Teaching Quality Assessment exercise and the Government's response to the report of the Dearing Committee will move things forward.
Specific to the teaching of statistics there are several lessons. The main lesson is that employers want university statisticians to make sure that students think in practical terms. They do also want students to have a strong theoretical foundation. Assessment methods need to match teaching objectives; in particular they should encourage transferable skills such as the abilities to work in a team and to communicate with non-statisticians.
If the start made by the MeaNs project is to be fully effective then more resources and money will be needed to build on its pioneering work.
30 March 1998
