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  • 1.  National Pass rates for Intro to Statistics Courses

    Posted 10-12-2016 09:08

    Hi,

    Does any one know where I can get the national success rates for college students in an introductory statistics course?

    Thank you,

    Kelly Fitzpatrick

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    Kelly Fitzpatrick
    Assistant Professor
    County College of Morris
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  • 2.  RE: National Pass rates for Intro to Statistics Courses

    Posted 10-13-2016 09:21
    That seems the type of information that the ASA Board would want at their fingertips.
    How many and how successful could serve a leading indicator about the profession.
     
    Another piece of info would be how many Intro Stat courses have been replaced with students instead taking a Data Analytics or such named course outside the stat department?
     
    If nothing to be found at ASA, try the Dept of Education NCES (Nat Center for Ed Stats). I know that they at one time had a lot of individual course info. For example, I was amused to see this stat
    Which course has the largest percentage of A grades?
     
    Intro to Football!
     
     
    If nothing at NCES anymore – budgets have cut a lot of programs over the years, try NSF's stat group. They may know of some institutional research group like AIR that may have something. At NSF, call Emilda Rivers or Kelly Kang – they'd be most aware of any such work.
     
    Good luck hunting!
     
    Ron Fecso
    Founder and CSO
    ASQ Solutions LLC
     
     



    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: National Pass rates for Intro to Statistics Courses

    Posted 11-24-2017 11:22
    That is a really good question and I think many stats educators would like to know what a decent pass fail rate is.

    Your question is highly relevant right now because "statistics is becoming the new calculus", by which I mean intro stats is now competing with calculus for having the highest enrollment among lower level math classes. I know the MAA has kept statistics on pass-fail rates on Calculus for quite some time and the ASA, if they do not already do so, might want to consider doing the same (since intro stats is IMO harder than calculus in many ways).

    Hope you get some leads/answers.

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    Matthew Brenneman
    Instructor of Mathematics & Statistics
    Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: National Pass rates for Intro to Statistics Courses

    Posted 11-27-2017 10:26
    Yes, intro statistics is the new calculus--the required course that everyone doesn't respect. I had two college students at my Thanksgiving Dinner from the same university. One is finishing an allied medical program and took some very basic class that did not deal with any of the statistical issues in his field.  The other is a freshman interested in humanities and says that statistics is her 'get it out of the way' math requirement.  If we are still teaching these classes without relating to the content of the major, I don't see the point of it.

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    Georgette Asherman
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: National Pass rates for Intro to Statistics Courses

    Posted 11-29-2017 06:32
    I would really like to know about this information

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    Nandini Bhowmick
    Indiana State University
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: National Pass rates for Intro to Statistics Courses

    Posted 11-28-2017 05:59
    Be bold Kelly!

    You can send a FOIA request to public universities and ask for student level data in say, "All math and Stats courses Sophomore level and below, including the following courses IExxxx, etc." 

    You'll need to request that student's ID be anonomized among other things. 

    When I send in my requests, I ask for:

    Student ID (anonymized, but consistent such that a student number will be replaced with the same anonymous number)
    Professor ID (anonymized, but consistent such that a professor ID will be replaced with the same anonymous identifier)
    Term or Start date
    Course pre-req (MATH, STAT, etc)
    Course number (0001, 2002, etc)
    Student grade (Including W, I, A+ to E/F, DR, etc)
     

    By getting all the data, you can then see what math class a student had previously and what professor taught the class. Those are the two big influences of student performance.   

    Data prep and analysis takes less than an hour.... You can even process and join as one big file and save lots of time!

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    Andrew Ekstrom

    Statistician, Chemist, HPC Abuser;-)
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    Original Message