Using the ASA Curriculum Guidelines to Develop New Undergraduate Programs in Statistical Science

• Activity Number: 12
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Sunday, August 9, 2015 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Stacey Hancock*
• Companies: UC Irvine
• Keywords: Undergraduate curriculum ; statistics education ; undergraduate guidelines ; data science

Abstract

Statistics undergraduate programs are on the rise, and the number of students majoring in statistics has dramatically increased in recent years. The American Statistical Association (ASA) has been proactive in identifying areas in the undergraduate curriculum that need to be enriched in order to keep up with our constantly changing discipline. This paper will discuss how the newly adopted ASA undergraduate curriculum guidelines can be used to develop new undergraduate programs in statistics or data science. As a case study, we will demonstrate how the guidelines were used in developing a data science major at the University of California, Irvine, and will consider the differences and similarities between statistics and data science undergraduate majors.