Teaching Statistics as Art and Science Involves Asking the Right Questions

• Activity Number: 699
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Thursday, August 8, 2013 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Peter Van Ness*+
• Companies: Yale Univ School of Medicine
• Keywords: teaching ; education ; art ; randomization test ; variance formula ; science

Abstract

Recommendations to teach statistics as an art as well as a science are not uncommon. The objective of this paper is to provide conceptual and pedagogical specification to efforts to teach statistics as an art and science by describing these two elements with reference to important hermeneutic principles and rhetorical tropes that apply to teaching in both domains. Furthermore, the pedagogical implications of these specifications will highlight several questions that both teachers and students of statistics should ask of themselves and one another as they undertake the task of teaching and learning statistics. The hermeneutic principle of major interest is the hermeneutic circle, which says that to understand the part you must understand the whole, and, likewise, to understand the whole you must understand its parts. The rhetorical trope of major interest is symbolic ellipsis in which words, symbols, or ideas are left out of an artistic or scientific presentation in an attempt to communicate more effectively. Illustrative strategies for teaching specific topics common to introductory statistics courses will be provided.