Using Technology Resources to Teach Sampling Distributions in Introductory Statistics Courses

• Activity Number: 522
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 3, 2011 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Ramon Gomez*+
• Companies: Florida International University
• Keywords: Statistics education ; Sampling distributions ; SPSS ; PowerPoint

Abstract

The content for a first statistics course at college level typically comprises three logical units: descriptive statistics, probability and inferential statistics. The topic of sampling distributions is presented as a link between probability and the inferential unit. Statistics educators believe that sampling distributions is one of the more difficult concepts to understand by students taking this type of course. In addition to illustrating the central limit theorem, the present author's approach while teaching the sampling distributions of means and proportions consists of focusing on the standard errors in such a way that the precision of estimations and significance of hypothesis tests are better understood. This paper discusses the benefits of using technology resources to support this approach with a simulation-based method. SPSS generates the sampling simulations and PowerPoint provides students with the visual comprehension, combining for a highly effective teaching-learning method.