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RSS Centre for Statistical Education
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RSS Centre for Statistical Education
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Contents
To the profession as a whole
To employers
To universities
in general
statistics departments -
general recommendations
statistics departments -
main courses
statistics departments -
service courses
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1. To the Profession as a whole
a. The Royal Statistical Society, as the
representative of the statistics profession, should seek to
influence University Officers, and to convince them that
statistics is a key skill of relevance to all discipline areas.
It needs to be fostered and resourced at least to the extent that
IT is.
b. The Royal Statistical Society, as well as its
members and statistical educators, should endeavour to raise
public awareness of the scope and power of statistics, so that
employers can see that statisticians have more to offer than
routine calculations. Rather, they can contribute meaningfully to
many aspects of corporate decision-making that have resource and
financial implications for the company. One example of this was
the fact that involving a statistician in such a role had saved a
company £14 million on one project alone. Recognition of this
fact by the company ensured that statistics became more widely
appreciated.
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2. To employers
a. It would help if more employers offered placement
opportunities of different lengths to match different needs.
b. Many employers could benefit from finding out what
statisticians can offer in terms of quality improvement,
efficiency in experimental design, economies in production etc.
c. There could be a closer association between the
statistical activities of the workplace, and the preparation that
graduates receive in their statistical education. Employers could
explore with academics the extent to this gap can be narrowed.
d. Employers need to take care in identifying the
exact requirements for a post, including transferable skills, and
communicate this clearly to prospective applicants. This gives an
incentive to include such things as part of graduates’
training. Precise job specifications can provide telling insights
into how universities can make their students more employable.
e. Employers would benefit by using appropriate
selection tools that are valid indicators of whether or not
applicants do possess those competencies that the employers have
identified as being requirements of the post. The project team
was impressed by the structured approach used to recruit
government statisticians (and also to provide a framework for
subsequent career progression).
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3. To universities
General
a. Teaching must be recognised as being equally
important as research activity, in reality, not merely on paper.
b. Adequate resources need to be allocated to
training lecturers in pedagogy, and the project team welcomes the
Dearing Committee’s recommendation concerning the compulsory
accreditation of HE lecturers. HE lecturers need training in how
to teach, and more particularly in how to teach statistics
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Statistics Departments: general
a. Although the MEANS project team did find examples
of good teaching and assessment practice, they were not
universally in operation. Statistics teaching at HE level can,
and should, be enhanced.
b. There could be a closer association between the
statistical activities of the workplace, and the preparation that
graduates receive in their statistical education. Academics could
explore with employers the extent to which this gap can be
narrowed.
c. More recognition should be given to statistical
reasoning processes as being higher order skills. At present, the
emphasis in assessment lies too much towards rewarding the
performance of arithmetic and algebraic techniques and
derivations.
d. In both teaching and assessing statistics, it is
important to emphasise the practical aspects of the subject. They
are relevant both because they provide the origin from which
theory develops, and also because they are manifestations or
applications of that theory..
e. Departments should consider a more radical
approach to assessment and the use of a wider range of techniques,
ones that will be more in keeping with the stated aims and
objectives of statistical education. This is especially relevant
to transferable skills, e.g. communication and listening skills
of the type associated with statistical consultancy, working in a
team, etc. Even when such skills are highlighted in syllabuses,
inappropriate forms of assessment can impede their being taught
or learned.
f. There should be more coherent progression in
statistics syllabus content from school to university. Certainly,
in designing particular modules, care must be taken to ensure
that account is taken of what students will have covered within
the National Curriculum in Mathematics. Students will not have
received a similar level of homogeneity in their post-16 studies
of statistics. However, it makes little sense to recruit students
with strong A- or AS-level statistics backgrounds to introductory
modules designed for students with no study of statistics beyond
the age of 16.
g. Reviews of content and teaching approaches should
not be seen merely as ways of reinforcing existing practices
h. Teaching Quality Assessment exercises should find
ways of evaluating what is actually being done within the
teaching/learning process and not merely at what is said is done.
Much is already known from the research literature in statistical
education, of both specialist and non-specialist students, about
more effective ways of teaching and learning statistics. It is
against this knowledge, rather than against traditionally
accepted practices, that current teaching quality should be
assessed. The methods used should be appropriate to the aim of
encouraging good teaching.
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Statistics Departments - main courses
a. All university statistics courses should
specifically include practical coursework and collaborative
projects to develop the team work skills needed in employment.
b. IT should be integrated more securely into the
statistics programmes, and its presence there should lead to some
re-appraisal of the existing syllabus content and teaching and
assessment methods.
c. It is important to develop in statistics graduates
a global overview of the discipline. Modularization within
graduate programmes does not always encourage this.
d. The system whereby courses are designed and
validated should be flexible enough to allow undergraduate
content and teaching methods to anticipate, and/or develop in
step with, statistical developments of the future. This requires
the lecturers themselves to appreciate the importance of change.
There is much conservatism when it comes to deciding whether a
course that has been running for many years is still (a) a
necessary component for students to gain an understanding of
statistics as a whole, or (b) relevant to the statistics that the
student will practise in the workplace.
e. Placement schemes were highly valued by all
involved. We recommend that all university departments consider
how best they may get their students on long- or short-term
placements as part of their courses.
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Statistics Departments - service courses
a. Departments could usefully arrange courses or workshops
for managers on the appreciation of what statistics and
statisticians can do for them (as distinct from courses in
specific statistical techniques).
b. There should be careful consideration of the content and
delivery of statistics to non-specialist students, as well as the
timing of the statistical teaching and its integration with their
other studies.
c. Lecturers in user-discipline departments often make
unrealistic assumptions about the statistical techniques they
require their students to know, and how and when this teaching/learning
is to be accomplished. Such views are perpetuated if those
responsible for teaching the statistics component do not press
for more realistic and academically sound approaches.
