Evaluating Some Popular Introductory Applied Statistics Textbooks: What We Like About Them and What We Would Like Them to Do Differently
Katherine T. Halvorsen
Smith College
André Michelle Lubecke
Lander University
Dexter C. Whittinghill
Rowan University
Philip Yates
Saint Michael's College, Babson College
John McKenzie
Saint Michael's College, Babson College
In this session, each panelist will respond to the following two questions for two popular textbooks and their supplements: What do you like about this textbook? What would you like this textbook to do differently? To answer these questions, each panelist will present ordered lists of 10 items, two for each textbook. By these critiques of eight different textbooks, the panelists will give their opinions on all aspects of the introductory applied statistics course. Hence, they will discuss topics (content), techniques (delivery), and technology (statistical software, datasets, course management software, applets, etc.). There will be ample time for audience participation at the end of the session. Based on a past extremely popular JSM session for introductory business and economics textbooks, this session should appeal to a large number of attendees, including instructors, authors, and publishers. It should also lead to improvements in these and other introductory applied statistics textbooks, which have an extraordinary influence on how statistics is initially presented to an increasingly large number of students.