Statistical reasoning or statistical method: Students' preferences for learning Statistics

Abstract

Statistical reasoning should precede the statistical method in the teaching of statistics because the students should master the concepts before they perform computations. To find out whether the students were aware of this principle, the present study explored their preference and the underlying reasons. Twenty undergraduates were taught central tendency and variability by using statistical method (with machine computation) and statistical reasoning (with manual computation) respectively in one session. Most of them turned out to prefer to reason and compute numeric data manually because they understood the statistical concepts and the process of the computation. On the other hand, the rest of the undergraduates preferred the teaching of statistics using the statistical method with machine computation for three reasons: accuracy, efficiency, and convenience. The implications of these findings for the teaching of statistics were presented.