| Two groups of community college students studying elementary statistics were compared. The control group consisted of 38 students in two classes during the fall of 1998 and the treatment group consisted of 40 students in two classes during the spring of 1999. The treatment group participated in ten data collection and analysis activities in lieu of some teacher-centered instruction.;Quantitative results showed that students in the treatment group had significantly better grades on the first of three tests (p < .0001), but none of the selected final examination items. The treatment group also showed significantly greater understanding of one concept of the seven selected scales measured by the Statistical Reasoning Assessment (Garfield, 1998), the importance of large samples (p = .0465). Students encountered this concept many times throughout the semester as they collected data and pooled their results with those of their classmates. The Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics (SATS) and the STARC-CHANCE Abbreviated Scale (SCAS) were administered to assess students' attitudes and beliefs. No statistically significant differences were determined.;Qualitative results indicated that while in some cases the writing of students in the treatment group showed greater depth of understanding, these students were also more likely to exhibit confusion among related topics such as correlation and regression, or confidence intervals and margin of error. Interviews conducted with ten students, eight weeks after the course, indicated that the control group had greater retention of ideas than the treatment group.;The data do not indicate that including ten disjoint, constructive hands-on activities into an otherwise traditional course is sufficient to achieve the broad gains in statistical understanding advocated by the reform movements in mathematics and statistics education. The author recommends that sequences of related activities be implemented to help students build on previous ideas and develop connections among concepts. Additional research should be conducted with classes that use integrated, constructive, student-centered activities as the primary classroom instructional tool throughout the semester. |
