STUDENT ATTITUDES TOWARD STATISTICS FROM A RANDOMIZATION-BASED CURRICULUM

Recently, a large national (US) sample was used to evaluate attitudes toward statistics among undergraduate students. The majority of the courses in the sample used a similar (AP Statistics) curriculum. Recent interest in the use of randomization-based methods in introductory statistics raises substantial questions about the conceptual effectiveness and attitudes of students in such courses. To begin to better understand the advantages and disadvantages of a randomization-based curriculum, we evaluated student attitudes in courses using randomization curricula and compared these to students using a traditional curriculum. Overall, there were only small, statistically and practically insignificant, differences in student attitudes between the two samples. While randomization approaches remain new, our analysis suggests that these curricula may not be harming nor improving students ’ attitudes toward statistics relative to traditional courses in undergraduate courses