On 29 Apr 2004 at 10:29, Herman Rubin wrote: > It is rather difficult to check this; I do know of a > study by Suppes and others around 1960 on mathematical > concept formation in children. This involved teaching > simple concepts, and using multiple choice tests, on > children aged 5 to 7. The results clearly show that > there is only a small amount of learning before the > concept is completely learned (no further errors); there > is no gradual decrease in errors. > > BTW, the study also checked for "transfer". The results > again were clear; children taught one concept took longer > to learn a related one than those learning that as the > initial concept, and the interference was greatest in > going from more special to more general. This agrees > with my beliefs, and suggest that we are using the worst > order in teaching. > > We can teach concepts and formalism directly, and then > apply it. The practice of "working up" to a concept is > both time wasting and requires UNlearning, most difficult. > --
To bring this back to stats education, what does this imply about the content of a first statistics course, for people majoring in statistics? (I am here still fighting against the old tradition of first teaching "descriptive statistics", which I find ridiculous, but that's the local tradition, and change is hard. Any good ideas/arguments? Kjetil Halvorsen > This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views > are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University. Herman > Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University > [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: > (765)494-0558 . . > ================================================================= > Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the > problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . > http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . > ================================================================= > . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
