Associate Professor of Mathematical Sciences Leyla Batakci along with six other researchers from peer institutions recently received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for their research in Statistics Education. The NSF’s Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Education and Human Resources (IUSE: EHR) grant, which totals $599,999, will fund the team’s goals for the next three years.
Their project, Motivational Attitudes in Statistics and Data Science Education Research (MASDER), will study student attitudes toward statistics in order to more broadly improve statistics education. Batakci will work alongside peers from five different institutions including Dr. Marjorie E. Bond from Monmouth College, IL, Dr. Wendine Bolon, Monmouth College, IL, Dr. April Kerby, Winona State University, MN, Dr. Michael Posner, Villanova University, PA, Dr. Alana Unfried, California State University Monterey Bay, CA and Dr. Douglas Whitaker, Mount Saint Vincent University, Nova Scotia, Canada.
“Attitudes toward statistics are important outcomes of statistics courses because they are directly related to student achievement,” said Batakci. “Studies show that students forget what they do not use but their attitudes last longer. The instruments we will be developing will serve to improve teacher training, in turn, students’ achievement.”
The team will begin their meetings over winter break and will launch the pilot 1 stage of the project which includes a student survey followed by an instructor survey in the spring of 2021.