The HILT-LAS Project: High Impact, Little Time activities that address Lexical Ambiguity in Statistics

该项目将解决全国对改进本科生统计教育的日益增长的需求，以使大量美国居民能够更深入地了解统计，以便做出明智的决定。一个推论是，对于一个受过教育的复杂社会来说，统计素养是必不可少的。最近，关于本科科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)领域的教与学已经有了很大的了解，STEM教育的建议之一是在课堂上培养主动学习。与此相一致，STEM学科的教育研究人员也早就注意到，语言往往会对学生学习科学构成障碍。在NSF改善本科生STEM教育计划的资助下，项目调查人员将为一年级的本科生统计课程创建和研究一系列基于研究的活动和相应的材料。这些活动和材料将设计成对学生的学习有很大的影响，而教师只需要很短的时间就可以采用和实施。这些影响很小的时间(HILT)活动和材料还将侧重于打破统计过程中的语言和术语障碍。根据2012年国家研究理事会关于以学科为基础的教育研究报告的建议，该项目将汇集一个由统计学家、以学科为基础的统计教育研究人员和一名具有评估和师资发展背景的专家评估员组成的多学科研究团队，以指导改进统计学入门课程的学习和教学。该项目的目标是：(1)开发一套以研究为基础的HILT活动，以解决学生学习统计中与语言使用有关的问题；(2)产生关于这些活动对学生学习统计的影响的循证知识；(3)在统计教育中创建一个可广泛传播的交互式专业发展教学模式；(4)建立一个网络储存库的基础，其目的不仅是传播HILT活动，而且还包含促进和维持专业发展模式取得成功所需的功能。研究人员将采用混合方法来确定(A)HILL语言活动的实施在多大程度上促进了学生在统计学方面的学习，以及(B)哪些教学方法有效地发展或改善了学生在统计学方面的学习结果。定量数据将用于确定学生学习差异的程度，FHS数据将通过管理第一门统计课程的综合评估结果(CAOS)来收集。项目组还将通过词汇歧义度工具(LAI)收集定性数据，该工具将作为项目的一部分完成。数据将从接触过刀柄活动的学生和没有接触刀柄活动的学生中收集和分析。

This project will address the growing national need for improvements in undergraduate statistics education to enable a large cadre of America's residents to acquire a deeper understanding of statistics in order to make informed decisions. A corollary is that statistical literacy is imperative for an educated complex society. Recently, much has been learned about the teaching and learning of undergraduate science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, and one of the recommendations in STEM education is to foster active learning in the classroom. In line with this, education researchers in the STEM disciplines also have long noted that language often poses a barrier for students studying science. With funding from the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program, the project investigators will create and study a collection of research-based activities and corresponding materials for first-year undergraduate statistics courses. These activities and materials will be designed to have high impact on student learning, while requiring little time for an instructor to adopt and implement. These High Impact Little Time (HILT) activities and materials also will focus on breaking down language and jargon barriers in statistics in the process. Following a recommendation from the 2012 National Research Council Report on Discipline-Based Education Research, the project will bring together a multidisciplinary research team of statisticians, discipline-based statistics education researchers, and an expert evaluator with background in assessment and faculty development to guide improvements in learning and instruction in introductory statistics courses. The goals of this project are to: (1) develop a set of research-based HILT activities for addressing issues in student learning of statistics related to language use; (2) generate evidence-based knowledge of the effects these activities have on student learning in statistics; (3) create an interactive professional development instructional model in statistics education that can be widely disseminated; and (4) produce the basis for a web-repository designed not only to disseminate the HILT activities, but also to contain the functionality necessary to promote and sustain the success of the professional development model. The researchers will employ a mixed methods methodology to determine (a) to what extent the implementation of the HILT language activities promote student learning in statistics and (b) the instructional approaches which are effective for developing or improving student learning outcomes in statistics. Quantitative data will be used to determine the extent of differences in student learning, and fhs data will be collected via the administration of the Comprehensive Assessment of Outcomes of a first Statistics Course (CAOS). The project team will also collect qualitative data via the Lexical Ambiguity Instrument (LAI), which will be finalized as part of the project. Data will be collected and analyzed from both students who are exposed to the HILT activities and those who are not.