Teaching Statistics Using SPSS Technology

Anxiety is a common response in statistics courses from undergraduate, graduate students, and faculty. Statistics is often taught as a set of lists and unconnected concepts that make these feelings of anxiety worse. Research has described the value that statistics software brings to enhancing the level of understanding of the conceptual aspects of statistics. For example, statistical software provides opportunities to analyze real world data that is often too large to analyze through traditional approaches. Statistics software may provide an environment that increases the time to focus on conceptual understanding rather than the mechanics of computation. However, introduction of software into a statistics course poses several cognitive and affective implications. Some groups of students experience greater levels of apprehension when using computer technology. The purpose of the study was to provide a theoretical framework for the instructional design implications of implementing SPSS technology into an introductory statistics course