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Ask Good Questions

Ask Good Questions. Allan J. Rossman Dept of Statistics Cal Poly – San Luis Obispo (USA) 8 th International Conference on Teaching Statistics. Frank Sinatra. What’s the secret to success as a singer? “Sing Good Songs”. 2. My similarly succinct suggestion.

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Ask Good Questions

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  1. Ask Good Questions Allan J. Rossman Dept of Statistics Cal Poly – San Luis Obispo (USA) 8th International Conference on Teaching Statistics

  2. Frank Sinatra • What’s the secret to success as a singer? • “Sing Good Songs” 2 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  3. My similarly succinct suggestion • What’s the secret to success at teaching statistics? • “Ask Good Questions” 3 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  4. No hidden message • My take-home message • Ask Good Questions • Quiz at end of presentation • Q: What was my point? • A: Ask Good Questions • I may email you in 10 years • Q: What do you remember? • A: Ask Good Questions Rossman Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  5. George Cobb • “Judge a textbook by its exercises, and you cannot go far wrong.” 5 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  6. My corollary • “Judge a teacher by the questions that he/she asks of students, and you cannot go far wrong.” 6 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  7. What kinds/purposes of questions? • Guide students to develop their understanding and skills • Learning activities • Assess how well students have learned • Assessment questions 7 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  8. What makes a question “good”? • I respectfully decline to answer • For now • Instead I’ll present some examples of both kind of questions (learning activities, assessment questions) • Taken from “Stat 101” (introductory, algebra-based, service course at tertiary level) • Then I’ll revisit this question 8 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  9. Four examples (learning activities) 9 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  10. George Cobb (again) • “Shorn of all subtlety and led naked out of the protective fold of educational research literature, there comes a sheepish little fact: lectures don’t work nearly as well as many of us would like to think.” 10 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  11. Example 1: TVs and life expectancy • Is there an association between a country’s life expectancy and its number of televisions per person? 11 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  12. Example 1: TVs and life expectancy • Does the scatterplot reveal an association? Which direction? How strong? Linear? • Based on these data, would you conclude that sending TVs to Haiti would cause Haitians to start living longer? • Identify a confounding variable that explains the association • Does a strong association between variables imply a cause/effect relationship? 12 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  13. Example 2: Reading cancer pamphlets • Are pamphlets containing information for cancer patients written at an appropriate level that cancer patients can understand? Rossman 13 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  14. Example 2: Reading cancer pamphlets • Explain why the mean cannot be calculated for patients’ reading levels • Determine median reading level of patients, median readability level of pamphlets • Are the pamphlets’ readability levels well-matched to the patients’ reading levels? • What proportion of patients have reading level below that of simplest pamphlet? 14 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  15. Example 2: Reading cancer pamphlets Rossman Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  16. Example 3: Sleep deprivation Does sleep deprivation have harmful effects on cognitive functioning three days later? 21 subjects; random assignment Identify type of study, observational units, explanatory and response variables Rossman 16 16 16 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  17. Example 3: Sleep deprivation Students use simulation (tactile, then computer-based) to investigate core question of statistical inference: Is such an extreme difference unlikely to occur by chance (random assignment) alone (if there were no treatment effect)? Rossman 17 17 17 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  18. Example 3: Sleep deprivation • Summarize conclusion, and explain reasoning process that supports your conclusion Rossman Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  19. Example 4: Which tire? • Legendary campus story • Which tire would you pick? • Research question: Do people tend to pick right front tire more often than random chance? • Again, students investigate the question of how surprising the observed class result would be under the null model with ¼ probability 19 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  20. Example 4: Which tire? • What if 32% of a random sample selects right front? Is this a significant/convincing result? • Or, what additional information would you need? • Make prediction for how p-value will change (if at all) as sample size increases • Calculate p-value for many different sample sizes • Summarize how sample size affects p-value, strength of evidence • Explain why this makes intuitive sense (in hindsight, if not in foresight) 20 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  21. Five examples (assessment items) 21 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  22. Joan Garfield, Beth Chance • Because students learn to value what they know they will be tested on, we should assess what we value.” - JG • “The number one mantra to remember when designing assessment instruments is: Assess what you value.” - BC 22 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  23. Assessment example 1 For each of the following quantities, indicate whether it can NEVER be negative or can SOMETIMES be negative. a) Sample size b) Sample proportion c) Standard deviation d) Inter-quartile range e) Difference in sample means f) Odds ratio g) Total sum of squares h) Slope coefficient i) Coefficient of determination j) Correlation coefficient k) ANOVA F-test statistic l) p-value 23 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  24. Assessment example 2 The U.S. has slightly more than 300 million residents. In order to estimate the proportion of U.S. residents who have a facebook account to within about 3 percentage points with 95% confidence, about how many people should be randomly sampled? 100 1000 10,000 100,000 1,000,000 10,000,000 24 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  25. Assessment example 3 Are people more likely to lie with email than with pencil-and-paper communication? A recent study involved 48 graduate students in business at a particular university who participated in a “bargaining” game. Researchers kept track of whether the student lied about the amount of money involved when negotiating with another player. Some of the participants were randomly assigned to use email for their communication, while others used paper-and-pencil. It turned out that 24 of 26 who used email were guilty of lying about the amount of money involved, compared to 14 of 22 who used paper-and-pencil. 25 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  26. Assessment example 3 (cont.) Use a simulation analysis to investigate whether these data provide strong evidence in support of the research conjecture in the first sentence above. Summarize the conclusions that you draw from your analysis. Be sure to address issues of statistical significance, causation, and generalizability. Also explain the reasoning process and justification for your conclusions. 26 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  27. Assessment example 4 State a research question, and describe a data collection plan to address it, for which a two-proportion z-test would be the relevant inference procedure. Identify the explanatory and response variables, and also state the relevant hypotheses, defining the parameter values appropriately. Be sure to indicate whether the data collection plan involves random sampling or random assignment. 27 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  28. Assessment example 5 (from 2009 AP Statistics exam) • Consider the statistic mean / median. What values of this statistic might indicate that the population distribution is skewed to the right? • Consider simulation results for values of mean / median, based on a normal population, and also the observed value of mean / median for given sample data. Do the simulation results suggest that the underlying population is skewed to the right? Explain. 28 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  29. Assessment example 5 (from AP Statistics, cont.) • Use only statistics in the five-number summary (min, Q1, median, Q3, max) to propose your own measure of skewness. Indicate values of this statistic that would suggest skewness to the right. Explain. 29 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  30. Oh, by the way …. • Notice that this talk is trying to model question-based pedagogy • From these specific questions/examples we can extract principles of “good” questions Rossman Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  31. So, what makes a question “good”? • Makes students think • Goes beyond their starting point • Challenges without overwhelming students • Engages students’ interest • To put forth effort to learn • To care about the course material being studied • Addresses important ideas • Indicates to students what’s valued 31 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  32. What else makes a question “good”? • Fits within logical progression • Builds on students’ knowledge • Asks students to make/check predictions • Confronts students’ misconceptions • Inspires students to ask their own questions • About course material • About “real-world” phenomena that can be investigated using intellectual skills being learned 32 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  33. One vehicle for students posing and investigating own questions • Students use gapminder software (Hans Rosling) to • Pose research questions about the world • Investigate those questions with animated graphics • Write report of their findings 33 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  34. Some questions from students’ projects • Are students more likely to recycle water bottles depending on the proximity of recycle bin and waste basket? • Can people better answer math problems if they are presented with Roman letter notation as opposed to Greek letter notation? • Are people who walk into a clothing store more likely to purchase something when the weather is rainy as opposed to sunny? • Is balsa wood less elastic after it has been immersed in water? • Are students’ reaction times affected by whether they’ve just completed exercising? • Are faculty more likely to drive a foreign car than students? • Do guests at a dinner respond more positively to spaghetti sauce that has been sweetened or not sweetened? • Do college students spend more money at a local fast food restaurant if they are under the influence of alcohol? 34 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  35. More unsolicited advice • ICOTS: Teaching Statistics • My experience at introductory tertiary level • Any advice for teachers of younger students? • Ask Good Questions • Any advice for teachers of graduate students? • Ask Good Questions • Any advice for statistics education researchers? • Ask Good Questions Rossman Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  36. Examples of interest to me • Does presenting activities/examples based on real data from genuine studies • Improve student learning of statistical ideas? • Increase student interest in statistics? • Enhance transferability of skills? • Do students learn more if tactile simulations are presented before technology ones? • Does it matter whether students construct or simply consume simulation results? Rossman Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  37. Some final questions for you • Have you ever attended a presentation titled • Ask Bad Questions, or • Don’t Ask Questions? • Of course not! So, … • Why am I wasting your time offering such obvious advice as “Ask Good Questions”?? 37 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  38. Yeah, why am I wasting your time? • I respectfully suggest that the next time you or I feel compelled to invest some of our valuable time, thought, energy, and creativity on … • Preparing crystal-clear lectures • Writing lucid paragraphs of exposition • Developing software illustrations • Crafting beautiful presentations 38 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  39. What should we do? Rossman 39 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  40. What should we do? Resist this temptation! Rossman 40 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  41. So, what do I suggest instead? • Instead we should invest these precious commodities (time, thought, energy, creativity) on • Developing engaging classroom activities • Preparing thought-provoking assignments • Writing lab or project expectations • Crafting effective assessment items • In other words, we should focus more of our attention on making sure that we … 41 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  42. What’s my point again? Ask Good Questions! 42 Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

  43. Thanks very much! • arossman@calpoly.edu • http://statweb.calpoly.edu/arossman/AskGoodQuestionsICOTS.ppt Rossman Ask Good Questions (ICOTS-8)

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