Enhancing Students' Ability to Use Statistical Reasoning with Everyday Problems

We discuss a technique for teaching students everyday applications of statistical concepts. We used this technique with students (n = 50) enrolled in several sections of an introductory statistics course; students (n = 45) in other sections served as a comparison group. A class of introductory psychology students (n = 24) served as a second comparison group. We assessed students' statistical reasoning ability at the beginning of the semester as well as later in the semester. All 3 groups showed improvements in statistical reasoning, but the greatest improvement occurred in the group that read the everyday application material.