What, How, and When to Teach Data Science and Statistics

Nicholas Horton, JSDSE Editor

The July 2022 issue of the Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education is freely available online. The issue includes nine articles, plus an interview with the University of Minnesota professor Robert delMas, this year’s recipient of the George Cobb Lifetime Achievement Award from CAUSE.

Discussions and suggestions about “what to teach” arise in “Developing Students’ Intuition on the Impact of Correlated Outcomes,” by Ashley Peterson; “Implementing a Senior Statistics Practicum: Lessons and Feedback from Multiple Offerings,” by Sierra Paloian, Kirsten Doehler, and Alexandra Lahetta; a data sets and stories paper titled “Regression, Transformations, and Mixed-Effects with Marine Bryozoans,” by Ciaran Evans; and a brief communication paper titled “Data Discovery Challenge Using the COVID-19 Data Portal from New Zealand,” by Jon MacKay.

Three papers explore “how to teach,” including “Think-Aloud Interviews: A Tool for Exploring Student Statistical Reasoning,” by Alex Reinhart, Ciaran Evans, Amanda Luby, Josue Orellana, Mikaela Meyer, Jerzy Wieczorek, Peter Elliott, Philipp Burckhardt, and Rebecca Nugent; “Teaching Statistics to Struggling Students: Lessons Learned from Students with LD, ADHD, and Autism,” by Ibrahim Dahlstrom-Hakki and Michelle L. Wallace; and “An Evaluation of College Students’ Perceptions of Statisticians,” by Gita Taasoobshirazi, Madeleine Wagner, Austin Brown, and Colene Copeland.

Finally, two papers—“Opportunities for K–8 Students to Learn Statistics Created by States’ Standards in the United States,” by Travis Weiland and Anita Sundrani, and “Reflections on the Current and Potential K–12 Impact of the Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education,” by Michael Dalton and Randall E. Groth—focus on presecondary education and involve important questions about “when to teach” data science and statistics, given the dramatic growth in these areas before college.