Reflections on the current state of spatial statistics education in the United States: 2014

Abstract

This paper surveys the current state of teaching spatial statistics in the United States (US), with commentary about the future teaching of such a course. It begins with a historical overview, and proposes what constitutes suitable content for a contemporary spatial statistics course. It notes that contemporary university-level spatial statistics courses are mostly taught across myriad units, including biology/ecology, climatology, economics (as spatial econometrics), environmental studies, epidemiology/public health, forestry, geography, geosciences/earth sciences, geospatial information sciences, mathematics, quantitative social science, soil science, and statistics. It discusses the diffusion of this course across the US, which began in the mid-1980s. One result it reports is a model spatial statistics course offering.