A First Look at Retention Following Changes to a Two-Semester Business Statistics Curriculum

• Activity Number: 128
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, July 30, 2012 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Amy Phelps*+
• Companies: Duquesne University
• Keywords: Non-majors second course ; retention ; critical thinking ; statistical literacy

Abstract

In response to criticism that students do not retain key statistical skills for use in upper level business courses, we instituted course revisions in our required two-semester business statistics curriculum. Two of five instructors moved quickly in the first semester to cover most of the usual statistical tests, thereby freeing up time to spend on larger, more meaningful and realistic problems designed to better prepare them for critical analyses and problem solving found in the upper business curriculum. We compared results of a statistics retention exam taken following the summer break between students taught using the faster track, case-studies approach (n1=72) to those having the traditional pedagogy (n2=143). Students from the revised curriculum scored 18.8% higher (P< 0.001). The retention exam consisted of 12 multiple choice questions and two applied problems focusing on a two-sample t-test and a simple linear regression requiring the interpretation of software analyses using ExcelT. While those receiving the revised curriculum scored higher on both types of questions, the bigger difference was observed in the problem solving interpretations of data analyses.