I have two kids in college age, and I frequently see them pretty upset and frustrated, and the reason is usually the same: they are late with their statistics homework. They have managed to navigate through the college maze fairly successfully, until they stumble to anything that looks like math. Even math they can do ok, when it comes down to statistics, they are always at loss. Countless night without sleep, suffering, but yet the success is very modest, because I see they pass their classes but they don’t learn much. What is that with statistics that creates this situation in my, otherwise, successful college kids?.
I think that the reason is in the method of teaching. I have a strong reason to say what I say. I have formal training in math, or otherwise said, I’m a mathematician, and I swear that I know why is this, and I’m terribly surprised that no one else raise her hand to complain. It turns out that kids actually are not guilty of the massacre we can experience at every respectable statistics course. Because, let’s face it, many students face some very elementary demands, and it is enough for them to repeat formulas like a parrot. That way they pass their statistics class with no or little difficulty. But yet those don’t learn even the name of their textbook. And then you find those that have to face some teachers that seem to think that their students are some kind of experts, and will assign an unreasonable amount of statistics homework. Kids sink subsequently. Why? I still haven’t given the answer, right?
The pure and simple truth is that students are being cheated, because they are forced to believe that they have learn and understand statistics as an standalone entity, when the is no reason to think a normal human being could learn statistics without going over a formal course in Probability Theory. It is as simple as that. How were you supposed to understand Part 2 of a novel if you don’t read Part 1? It is the same with probability and statistics, where the latter is the logical and necessary continuation of the other. I have always wondered why they do it. And then they complain because a number of students are trying to find statistics homework help online, because they cannot find it in their own class room, because they are forced to learn of a story without knowing the beginning of it.
How do we solve this? Well, it is a deep problem. College planners make their strategies on the air dreaming of the ideal requirements for certain degrees. Can you imagine them? “The candidate needs to show a solid understanding of statistical analysis, and blah, blah, blah”. They make their castles in the air and in their dreams they want to require students to have these and those skills, but they don’t seem to understand the nature of a process that leads to the true expertise. They want to form “experts” in statistics, but they want that expertise to be acquired from thin air. I think it is time to reformulate all these pretentious academic plans, and put our foundations onto something slightly more solid.
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