The Efficacy of Intensive Statistical Programming Courses at the Undergraduate Level

• Activity Number: 355
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 3, 2010 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Nicole Lyn Ifill*+ and Dawn Holmes
• Companies: University of California, Santa Barbara and University of California, Santa Barbara
• Keywords: Statistical Education ; SAS ; self assessment ; follow-up studies ; intensive class instruction

Abstract

Students taking an introductory SAS programming course have the opportunity to take an intensive three-week class or a typical ten-week version. To determine the relative educational value of each class format, two interviews were conducted amongst each class's students-one before the class began and one after it was finished. Because of limited class sizes, randomly selected samples could not be taken. Students' responses to the survey provide encouraging news for intensive statistical programming courses, which are often available during the summer. Not only do students perceive that they are learning more; we noted that the average class grade was comparable for each group as well.