Key aspects of a computerized statistics course - Springer Link

Journal of Computing in Higher Education Spring 1996, Vol. 8(2), 72-93.

Key Aspects of a Computerized Statistics Course Lawrence C. Marsh Karin L. Wells Department of Economics University of Notre Dame

ABSTRACT OMPUTERIZED TEACHING involves transforming the three traditional aspects of teaching: lectures, homeworks, and office hours/communications. Chalk-and-blackboard lectures are replaced with multimedia presentations. Work-it-out-and-hand-it-in homeworks are replaced with electronic homeworks with instant grading and detailed explanations. Traditional-office-hours are replaced by e-mail and listserv's and, more recently, by live computer screen interactions (live TV) between student and professor. The following discussion looks at these aspects of computerized teaching in the context of teaching an undergraduate statistics course. (Keywords: teaching statistics, multimedia presentations, electronic homeworks, e-mail/listserv communications)

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INTRODUCTION HIS ESSAY SUMMARIZES our experience in teaching a computerized statistics course. In particular, this paper explores key aspects of using computerized multimedia lectures, a computerized homework system with network monitoring and control, and computerized student-teacher communications via listserv, e-mail, and campus-wide course web servers. Other examples of computerized teaching can be found in Boschmann (1993) and Williams (1994). In order to contrast the traditional approach to teaching statistics with the computerized teaching system advocated here, we first focus on the purpose of the statistics course. The goal of introductory statistics is to strike a proper balance between instilling a knowledge of specific steps to carry out a variety of statistical procedures and learning the general concepts of statistics sufficiently well to be able to understand, remember, and transfer knowledge from one context to another. Spending too much time working through the mechanical details without fully explaining the concepts restricts students' ability to properly extend and apply the statistical methods to other situations. Too much emphasis on concepts without detailed examples often leaves students with general ideas but little knowledge of how to apply those ideas. In order to appreciate the possible impact of computerized teaching on students' ability to learn specific procedures and grasp key concepts, it is important to understand the limitations of the traditional approach to teaching statistics. What is wrong with chalk-andblackboard lectures, work-it-out-and-hand-it-in homeworks, and the traditional-office-hours system? What does a computerized course offer that might be better than, or at least different from, the traditional approach?

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EFFECTIVE MULTIMEDIA LECTURES HE PROFESSOR would like to believe students are following his or her thinking process as each example is carefully worked out on the blackboard. However, in highly detailed and technical lectures, more often than not, students are struggling to see the board and write down the equations, graphs, tables, and statements made by the professor. Because students have been concentrating on copying rather than thinking about the concepts being presented, they probably absorb very little of the material that is being presented. Moreover, it is often easy under the traditional system for faculty to occasionally "wing it" rather than to carefully prepare lectures for each class. The computerized teaching system proposed here induces the professor to prepare the lecture well in advance and provides students with a more organized and fully thought out lecture. Figures 1, 2, and 3 display slides from a typical computerized statistics course showing graphs, formulas, and tables.

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Figure 1. Confidence interval vs. hypothesis test

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Normal with l~t=20, ~2=20

Li:! :

0.3413 0.3438 0.3461 0.3485 0.3508

Standardize ! ~ 0.364,3 0.3665 0.3686 0.3708!0.3729 :~i~ then use the standardized ' : i i ~ 1 0.3849 0.3869 0.3888! D.3907 0.3925 normal table 2 5 . 5 - 20 x-~x "-- Z Z#E0 o" P(z > 1 . 2 3 ) - 0 . 5 0 . 3 9 0 7 P(z > 1 . 2 3 ) = 0 . 1 0 9 3 Figure 2. Calculating a right-tail probability In addition, the images presented in the computerized lectures are easily made available as Web pages on the campus network and/or generated into handouts that can be made available to students prior to the lectures. These handouts enable students to concentrate on understanding the lectures without having to worry about taking extensive notes. Therefore, using computerized lectures not only saves class time enabling the professor to go into more detail and to explain concepts more carefully, it also ensures the consistency, and the accuracy of the equations, tables, graphs, in the students' notes. For example, PowerPoint (Microsoft Corporation (1992)) will generate handouts with six slides on a side to produce twelve slides per page printed back-to-back. Fewer slides per page can be produced to leave more room for students to take some additional notes if they like. A full semester statistics course might generally be expected to consist of about nine hundred slides. Obviously, there is a high initial cost to generating all the slides, but once created, the variable cost

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Regression Analysis of Sale of Residential Property VARIABLE COEFF STD ERR T P(2-TAIL) INTERCEPT SQFEET D2BED D3BED A2BATH

- 6.482 0.021 14.662 29.803 4.883

4.112 0.005 4.871 10.575 3.953

-1.576 3.958 3.010 2.818 1.235

for 2,000 square feet: 4 2 - 6.482 = 35.518

or

0.176 0.011 0.030 0.037 0.272 $35,518

add a bathroom:

add a bedroom:

add 2 bedrooms:

$35,518 4,883

$35,518 14,662

$35,518

$40,401

$50,180

$65,321

29,803

add bath and 2 bedrooms: 35,518 + 4,883 + 29,803 = $70,204

Figure 3. Interpreting regression results of making improvements each term is considerably lower. The professor merely loads all the course slides onto the classroom computer before the first day of class and then notes at the end of each class session which slide number to start on next time. Furthermore, once the basic set of slides is created, the folder of slide images can be reproduced and sold in the campus bookstore or copy shop. The slides may be numbered so students can easily ask questions about specific slides. Sandy (1990) and Hawkes (1993) have each developed a large set of PowerPoint slides that can be used with their statistics textbooks. Although the PowerPoint lectures are prepared in advance and students may have hard copies of the presentations, PowerPoint is flexible enough to allow the professor to enhance lectures as they are being presented. During the lecture the professor uses the mouse to write directly onto the slides as they are being presented: circling important points, drawing arrows to emphasize relationships, and

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adding additional notes and comments as needed. If the professor needs more room to answer a question, PowerPoint can generate a white screen upon which to answer the student's question. During the lecture, if a student asks about a particular slide, the professor just types the slide number and hits return to move directly to the desired slide. The professor may use transition effects in moving from slide to slide and may make use of the build function to display lines one at a time on a slide for discussion of each point before bringing in the next one. Color may be used to emphasize certain ideas or to keep concepts clear. For example, blue might be used for population parameters and red for sample statistics throughout the slides. Other frequently used features include italics, underlining, different fonts and font sizes, shadows, angles, and ability to incorporate pictures and motion using QuickTime. Not only does the computerized presentation provide a wider range of options than the traditional blackboard or whiteboard approach, but it gives the professor a specific set of slide images that can be improved each semester or quarter. Thus, the professor does not have to "start over" each day in recreating the blackboard diagrams and equations so often miscopied by students. In addition, to PowerPoint presentations, custom made HyperCard demonstration programs may be included in the lectures. Such programs might simulate repeated flipping of a coin or rolling of a pair of dice with the outcomes instantly recorded and analyzed as part of the day's lecture. Some classrooms may be equipped with student response pads where students can reply electronically to the professor's questions using the small numbered key pad on each student desk. Results of the student survey can instantly be tabulated and evaluated. For example, are student guesses concerning the professor's height normally distributed around the professor's true height or is the distribution biased or skewed or both? Questions may be formulated to determine whether students are understanding the key points of the lecture and thus provide instant feedback to the professor during the course of the lecture.

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Proper lighting has been a key factor in effective computerized classroom presentations. The best situation is one where there is a dual lighting system--flourescent lights for traditional lecturing but incandescent downlight on a dimmer over each student for notetaking during computer presentations to avoid illuminating the projection screen. An additional row of downlights in front of the first row of seats allows the professor's face to appear brightly lit under a downlight while emphasizing a particularly important point, and then the professor can move back into the shadows when following up with examples and explanation. We have found in our course that an "air mouse" or mobile track ball allows the professor to move around the classroom while still retaining control of the computerized presentation. Thus, computerized presentations do not have to be stilted. They can accommodate spontaneity and professor-student interaction.

COMPUTERIZED HOMEWORK SYSTEM AVING CONSIDERED VARIOUS ASPECTS of computerized lectures, we now discuss the second major component of the computerized course, namely, the computerized homework system. This example involves the use of Quant Systems' Adventures in Statistics (AIS) homework system with their Classroom Management System (CMS) for network monitoring and control. AIS currently provides approximately twenty-two complete homework modules such as those displayed in Figure 4. Each module typically consists of fifteen questions. None of the questions are multiple choice or true-false. Students are given a sample and work out the answers with pencil, paper, and, perhaps, a hand calculator. Two students working next to one another on adjacent computers face the same homework questions but the random number generator in AIS gives them different samples. If a student fails to answer the AIS questions correctly, a new sample is drawn for the student to try again. Students must answer essentially all questions

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N a m e ' Joe College Code N u m b e r • A 0 0 A 0 A 0 0 A 0 A 0 0 0 A AOAA0 A A A A 0 Section" 1 M o d u l e Certification D ares DESCRIFIIVE DISCRETE RV BINOMIAL W P HYPERGEOMETRIC POISSON WP STANDARD NORMAL NORMAL DIST WP SAMPLING ( M ) SAMPLING (P) HYPOTH (M) Z HYPOTH (M) P

: 09/24196 (T) : 09126196(T) : 10/01/96 (T) : 10103196(T) : 10108196(T) : 10110196(T) : 10115196(L) : 10117196(T) : 10122/96(T) : 10124/96(T) : 10/29/96 (T)

HYPOTH (P) Z HYPffI'H (P) P FITI'INGLINES REGRESSION ANAL ESTIMATION (M) ESTIMATION (P) ANOVA (ONEWAY) ANOVA (REGRESS) NAME THAT DIST DIRECT MAIL GAMES OF CHANCE

: : : : : : : : :

11/05/96 (L) 11/07/96 (T) PAST DUE DUE 11114196 DUE 11119196 DUE 11121196 DUE 11/26196 DUE 11128196 DUE 12103196 : DUE 12105196 : DUE 12/10196

Hit any key to continue

Figure 4. Current certificate report

ADVENTURES IN STATISTICS

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Figure 5. Example of an AIS cemficate

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I CONTROL Main Menu I I Current Student : I JOE COLLEGE

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I Press to Select] Figure 6. Control main menu correctly before they can get certified by the automatic CMS certification program. A typical certificate is shown in Figure 5. Students may print out their certificate or save it on disk, but in any case, completion of each homework is automatically recorded on the CMS in their professor's electronic grade book. The professor may view a student's progress at any time from any computer attached to the campus network by using a password to access the CMS control system. Figures 6 and 7 show the professor's control screens. Students may choose to work on a networked computer where their homework certificates are automatically recorded on the CMS. Alternatively, under its special licensing provisions, Quant Systems allows students to copy and use the AIS program on their home computers. For commuter campuses where most students are nonresidents, or simply for any off-campus student, this provision allows students to do their work at home, or on the road, if they have a portable computer. Students may do their work on their home computer, save their certificate to a floppy disk, and then record it on the

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CONTROL

Edit M e n u [

Current Student' JOE COLLEGE Edit the section n u m b e r - Edit a certificate date - Modify a user-defined field - Display the entire record - Display certificationc o d e s - Delete this student - Help - Return to main m e n u

I -

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Press to Select[ Figure 7. Control edit menu

CMS from any networked computer when they arrive on the campus. Figure 8 shows the students' control menu. The AIS homework system allows students to work in practice mode before attempting certification in any one of the twenty-two or so homework sessions for the course. In practice mode there are several layers of hints that a student may activate while attempting to understand how to solve a particular problem. The hints are specific to the problem at hand and explain the problem making full use of graphics with various colors, shadings, and patterns to bring out the implications of the question. The final layer of hints lays out the entire problem in painstakingly clear, simple, and complete detail. Note that unlike the traditional work-it-out-and-hand-it-in homework system, the computerized system gives the student instant feedback no more waiting for papers to be graded and handed back.

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ADVENTURES

IN STATISTICS]

I Copyright 1986-1996Quant Systems ] All Rights Reserved I- Technical Skill Builders 2 - Concept Builders 3 - Thinking Statistically 4 - Print Last Certificate 5 - Register Certificates 6- Current Certificate Report 7- Examine Instructor's Syllabus 8 - Quit

I Press to Select I Figure 8. The menu that students see

Once students have mastered the questions in practice mode, they may then proceed to certification mode. Each homework session typically consists of fifteen questions. The rule in answering the fifteen questions is "three strikes and you're out." This means that a student may make one or two mistakes in answering the fifteen problems. More than two errors results in no certification for the session, and the student must restart the certification effort for that homework session. Since each concept is tested in a certification session several times, it would be difficult for a student to successfully complete a certification session without demonstrating at least some understanding of each of the concepts covered. Thus, students are not allowed to get away with incomplete or poor quality work. While AIS is very useful for introducing students to elementary statistics and distributions in statistics, it is limited in that it does not provide comprehensive statistical software allowing students to analyze their own data. The Adventures Stat-Lab provides the instructor with over fifty simulations and animations but does not allow stu-

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dents to carry out extensive statistical analysis with their own data. Since teaching students to use statistical software and to analyze and write up reports has become an integral part of many statistics courses, a separate statistical analysis application may be needed. Quant Systems is currently developing Statistician for Windows (SFW) based on its earlier work to allow students to analyze their own data sets with graphics, hypothesis testing, nonparametrics, ANOVA, regression, time series analysis, etc. Many other statistical programs are available from other vendors.

WHO PAYS FOR IT ? S WITH ALL SUCH SYSTEMS, the practicality of the AIS homework system depends rather fundamentally on economics. How is it financed? Who pays for it, and how much does it cost? This is where the cleverness comes in. Neither the faculty nor the University pays for anything. The system is fully supported from the sale of AIS manuals at the campus bookstore. Used copies are useless since the new copies have the eight digit limited-license-number card shrink wrapped to their covers as shown in Figure 9. Students must hand in their limited-license-number card to the professor on the first day of class. This procedure makes the system viable by spreading the cost evenly over all of the students. A list of the eight digit codes followed by the students' first and last names is then e-mailed to Quant Systems in South Carolina. They e-mail back the 30-digit letter-number access codes which act like social security numbers in that any use of the code gives credit only to the authorized student by producing homework completion codes that are unique to that student. Consequently, it makes no sense to borrow someone else's access code, since the professor knows the completion codes unique to each student for each homework module. This is why Quant Systems can allow students to copy the AIS software and use it at home. It just won't work without the access code. The

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KEY ASPECTS OF A COMPUTERIZED STATISTICS COURSE I

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ADVENTURES IN

STATISTICS

Important Present this form to your ins[ructor to receive an authorizaUon code for Adventures in Stalistics Software.

Name Course Instructor Dale

first

last

Limited License Number 00000000

Figure 9. The limited license number card access code uniquely identifies the individual authorized to use it and produces homework completion codes that are valid only for the student whose name is encrypted in the access code. A referee for this paper referred us to the Computer-Assisted Personalized Assignment (CAPA) system developed at Michigan State University (MSU). CAPA is potentially capable of generating computerized statistics homeworks and is designed to allow instructors to adapt it to fit their own curriculum. Many statistics problems can be created with the CAPA functions currently available. Other more complex problems might be easily implemented if new functions were created. Currently most users of the CAPA system are in physics, chemistry, biochemistry and calculus. At the time of this writing, a single-user license (one machine running the NeXTstep Operating System) is $300. Since a complete set of CAPA statistics homework problems has not yet been fully implemented, we are unable to make a detailed comparison of MSU's CAPA with Quant Systems' AIS System. Finally, we should note that Quant Systems is open to user-

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supplied statistics modules that could potentially be added to AIS. In AIS, the instructor already has the option of selecting the AIS homework modules to assign, the order of assignment, and the amount of credit that should be given for each module.

E-MAIL, LISTSERV' S, AND WEB PAGES HIS BRINGS US TO OUR LAST TOPIC which is studentteacher communications using listserv, e-mail, and campus-wide course web-servers. Traditionally, a student seeking help must wait until the professor has office hours, which is often inconvenient. Office hours are often inefficient particularly when a professor must answer the same question repeatedly. Listservs enable everyone in the class to communicate with everyone on the list. Each reply to a listserv message is automatically sent to everyone on the list. For courses where ideas are best developed through extensive discussion, listservs can be very effective for holding "class discussions" outside of class. However, one must closely monitor listserv messages in technical courses such as statistics, especially the night before an exam, so that less knowledgeable students do not confuse others. The difference between a listserv and an e-mail address list is important when determining the most satisfactory method of communication. With an e-mail address list, the professor can choose to send a reply only to the person who sent the original message or to everyone on the list. The entire class does not see another student's question until the professor has had a chance to evaluate it. If the professor decides that others may have the same question, both the question and answer can be sent to the entire class. Therefore, the professor avoids responding to duplicate questions and eliminates the possibility that students may inadvertantly misinform others, as sometimes happens on a listserv. Thus, e-mail address lists may be more

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Figure 10. E-mail list of students in Eudora effective in statistics courses, where students are more likely to need answers from the professor to specific questions. Figure 10 displays a "nicknames" list in Eudora and a message to be sent via "Bcc" (blind carbon copy) to all students in the "StatsCourse." (By sending messages via "Bcc," students see only the professor's e-mail address and not the list of student names and email addresses. In a small class the use of "Bcc" may not be necessary. In large classes, however, people find it annoying to wade through a long list of c-mail addresses in order to get to the relevant message. Using one student's inquiry, the professor can essentially anticipate the questions that others may have and respond even before some students realize that their understanding is incomplete. Surely this enhances educational productivity over the traditional office hours approach. For large classes it may be useful to send students to the computing center to have their pictures taken with digital cameras which then enables the professor to have the student's picture appear

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in the upper comer of the screen of any e-mail message sent to the professor. This clearly helps in getting to know the students in the class. A new technological development makes it possible to hold live, on-line, office hours using Connectix's QuickCam, Sony's PC Cam or other digitized motion cameras and software so that professors and students can hear and see each other on their respective computer screens. We have tried this but not yet implemented it for the course. Screen size and resolution currently make it more effective to electronically FAX hand-written graphs and equations so that the student has the written document in hand while discussing it in a live TV session. If the student has two screens open, the professor can write equations free hand, save them as JPG or GIF, and drag them to the professor's intemet (WWW) folder or directory for the student to view, automatically replacing any previous "handnotes.gif" document. The student must refresh their screen to view the new document (e.g., using Netscape). Optional information may be placed on an electronic bulletin board/campus network server for students to access without clogging up their e-mail. The key point here is that listservs and e-mail class lists are two distinct and rather different modes of communication that play different roles. We have made extensive use of the e-mail class lists in our statistics course and have used a number of listservs but not for our course given its technical nature. The electronic bulletin board works nicely for syllabi, old exams, practice problems, etc., as well as full color versions of the daily classroom lectures for students to rerun or copy onto floppy disk. Bulletin board items may be even more effectively provided on World Wide Web servers on the intemet using html or the new java language and displayed using Mosaic, Netscape, Hot Java or any appropriate web application. We have not tried using an electronic bulletin board for our statistics course nor the new Java language but use Netscape, HTML files, and provide limited course information on our intemet WWW server as is the current practice for many courses.

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STUDENT EVALUATIONS TUDENT EVALUATIONS of the multimedia lectures, computerized homework system, and electronic communications were based on five semesters of computerized teaching. Evaluation forms did not specifically address computerized teaching issues so only comments volunteered by the students on the evaluation forms were available. Information necessary to properly compare the performance of students before and after the introduction of the computerized teaching system is not available. Students offered both positive and negative views of the multimedia slide presentation with slides provided as a course packet. Typical positive comments about the slide presentations were:

S

I like the instructor's examples & powerpoint~he must have put lots of time into preparing. I like the PowerPoint format. The slides are cool. Having the lecture notes prior to class allowed me to spend class time listening rather than furiously copying. The course packet was very helpful because it included all the lecture notes and problems that helped me study for the test. I am math-impaired, but I'm really understanding so it must be working. Typical negative comments about the slide presentations were: Turning out the lights can cause great drowsiness. Occasionally departing from the slides and working individual problems in their entirety on the board would be helpful. Involve the students more in the lecture.

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Put less info on each powerpoint slide - some slides seemed crowded with too much info.

Regarding the computerized homework system (Adventures in Statistics), the students offered the following comments: The computer program homework made me think that ! knew the material better than I did. At times the computer tabs were jammed and as a result I could not finish my homework on time. Not all the homeworks seemed relevant to the class material. However, the homeworks that did complement the class material were helpful. Adventures was interesting but did not always seem to correspond to the text. The Adventures in Stats was tedious ~ learning to manipulate different distributions.

The students only offered some indirect comments pertaining to the electronic communications: Most of the time he responds to e-mail quickly. It is easy to get a hold of prof and send messages back and forth." The prof is always available to help with computer problems and in explaining homeworks. It is sometimes hard to send Stats questions on the computer.

Overall, the students seemed satisfied with the computerized approach to teaching statistics: The course far exceeded my expectations. The slide shows and Adventures were very helpful

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The most valuable benefit was gaining a better understanding of the power of statistical analysis in everyday life. These comments provide some idea of the benefits and problems associated with this style of computerized teaching. Of course, the comments may or may not carry over to different course materials or to different disciplines. The individual personality and style of the instructor may also play a role in determining how effective this communication and presentation approach to teaching might be in a particular case.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS N SUMMARY, the objective of an introductory statistics course is to transfer both detailed and conceptual knowledge to the students. Multimedia computerized presentations with slide image handouts allows students to concentrate on discussing and understanding the subject matter rather than writing and copying it during class time. In addition to saving time and making the lectures potentially more colorful and dramatic, this approach provides more structure to lectures and a framework to continually update and upgrade lecture material in order to find the right balance between details and concepts. The computerized homework system gives students immediate feedback and does not accept incomplete or incorrect work. The professor can monitor student progress on each assignment and knows before the next class whether students are having trouble completing that day's homework. The professor can use the teaching assistant's time, that would normally have been spent grading homework, to hold review sessions or provide other assistance. E-mail, listserv, electronic bulletin boards, and web servers allow the students and professor to exchange information quickly, efficiently, and effectively, selecting the most appropriate mode for the type and

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quality of information to be exchanged. Anticipated improvements in this area will make technical communications even more effective in the future. The unintrusive nature of these methods allow both the students and the professor to concentrate on their work uninterrupted until they are ready to read and respond to the messages and information provided. Moreover, instead of repeating the same information to different students during office hours or on the telephone, the professor can answer a question in e-mail and transmit the question and answer to all students in the class. Communications technologies offer the possibility of greatly improving faculty and student productivity. While there is no formal evidence of improved student performance, alumni have told us that they greatly benefited from the use of technology in this course and found the knowledge they gained useful in practice, especially in evaluating statistical studies and reports. We provided some informal, but anonymous, comments from our students in the previous section. Further work, however, is needed to formally evaluate the effectiveness of these teaching methods.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We gratefully acknowledge the large number of slides and extensive assistance of Robert Sandy, Chair of the Department of Economics at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis and author of the statistics textbook (Sandy,1990) that we use in teaching the introductory statistics course described in this essay. We are also grateful to James Hawkes, a professor at the University of Charleston and CEO of Quant Systems in Charleston, South Carolina, and his highly qualified staff for assistance with Adventures in Statistics (Hawkes, 1992a) and the Classroom Management System (Hawkes, 1992b). Special thanks to Sister Elaine DesRosiers, O.P. (Director of Educational Media) for her encouragement and help with this article, and to Charles Craypo (former Economics Department Chair), Amitava

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Dutt (current Economics Department Chair), Roger Skurski (Associate Dean), Harold Attridge (Dean), Roger Schmitz (former Vice President and Associate Provost), Harold Pace (Registrar), Rev. Edward A. MaUoy, C.S.C (President), and especially Chad Kainz of University of Chicago's Multimedia and Visualization Center for their support and encouragement of our computerized teaching efforts. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the corrections and suggestions made by the referees and editor. We retain full responsibility for any remaining omissions or inaccuracies.

REFERENCES Boschmann, E. (Ed.). (1993). Technology Success Stories: Using Technology to Enhance Teaching and Learning at IUPUI. Faculty Development Office, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, 355 N. Lansing Street, Indianapolis, IN 46202. Hawkes, J. S. (1992a). Adventures in Statistics, Version 4.1. Quant Systems, P.O. Box 628, Charleston, SC 29402. Hawkes, J. S. (1992b). AIS Teaching Guide, Version 4.1. Quant Systems, P.O. Box 628, Charleston, SC 29402. Hawkes, J. S. (1993). Discovering Statistics: an adventure in problem solving. Charleston, SC: Quant Publishing. Kashy, E., Morrissey, D.J., Tsai, Y., & Wolfe, S.L. (1995). An Introduction to CAPA, A Versatile Tool for Science Education, MSU-NSCL Report 971, September.

Kashy, E., Sherrill, B.M., Tsai, Y., Thaler, D., Weinshank, D., Engelmann, M., & Morrissey, D.J. (1993). CAPA: An Integrated Computer-Assisted Personal Assignment System, American Journal of Physics, 61, 1124. Microsoft Corporation (1992). Microsoft PowerPoint Handbook: Presentation Graphics Program. Redmond, Washington: Microsoft Corporation.

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Sandy, R. (1990). Statisticsfor Business and Economics. New York, NY: McGrawHill Publishing Company. Williams, C. J. (Ed.). (1994). Changing the Process of Teaching & Learning: Essays by Notre Dame Faculty. Educational Media and Office of University Computing, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556.

ABOUTTHEAUTHORS Lawrence Marsh is associate professor of Economics at the University of Notre Dame. He has both a Master's degree and a Ph.D. degree in Economics from Michigan State University. He has authored over sixty published professional articles and has given over one hundred presentations at professional meetings. He has served on over seventy-five Ph.D. dissertation committees in Economics. His research focuses on econometric methods and economic theory. Author's present address: Department of Economics, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556 E-mail: [email protected] Karin Wells earned her Master's and Ph.D. degree in Economics from the University of Notre Dame where she specialized in econometric methods and public policy. Her doctoral dissertation used event history analysis methods to evaluate the impact of the change from cooperative federalism to competitive federalism on the public sector employment durations of black men, black women, white men, and white women. She has two published professional articles and has given several professional presentations. As a graduate student teacher, she taught statistics at Notre Dame. Author's present address: 3015 W. Michigan Street, Miwaukee, WI 53208

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