Enhancing students’ ability to use statistical reasoning with everyday problems

We discuss a technique for teaching students everyday applications of statistical concepts. We used this technique with students (n = 50) enrolled in several sections of an introductory statistics course; students (n = 45) in other sections served as a comparison group. A class of introductory psychology students (n = 24) served as a second comparison group. We assessed students ’ statistical reason-ing ability at the beginning of the semester as well as later in the se-mester. All 3 groups showed improvements in statistical reasoning, but the greatest improvement occurred in the group that read the everyday application material. For years, psychologists have discussed the importance of teaching students everyday statistical reasoning skills and the fact that typical statistics courses often fall short of this goal (e.g., Nisbett, Krantz, Jepson, & Kunda, 1983). Fong, Krantz, and Nisbett (1986) wrote