Readiness of Final Semester Diploma in Statistics Students to Progress to the Next Level: A Trial Exit Test

Abstract

Diploma in Statistics graduates choose to either to pursue further education or begin their careers as assistant statisticians. In either case, they are expected to have a strong of understanding in statistics and should be able to apply the knowledge and skill that they have learned when dealing with real data sets. This paper aims to assess the readiness of final semester Diploma in Statistics students to meet this expectation by analyzing their responses on a trial exit test. The test was given during the final (fifth) semester before graduation. The results showed that these students have the capability to compute the statistics values correctly. However, they still lack an understanding of the appropriate statistics that should be used as they failed to respond correctly to question on the application of statistics. They were not competent enough to understand the formula, and could not see how certain data could not appropriately be represented by certain statistics. For instance, it is not appropriate to use mean for a data set which contains outliers. This deficiency should be catered for and resolved by educators, so that the institution may provide skilled and knowledgeable statistics graduates who are able to meet the requirement set by educators and other stakeholders.