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Graduate level statistics education curricula often emphasize technical instruction in theory and methodology but can fail to provide adequate practical training in applications and collaboration skills. We argue that a statistical collaboration center (“stat lab”) structured in the style of the University of Colorado Boulder’s Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Statistical Analysis (LISA) is an effective mechanism for providing graduate students with necessary training in technical, non-technical, and job-related skills. We summarize the operating structure of LISA, and then provide evidence of its positive impact on students via analyses of a survey completed by 123 collaborators who worked in LISA between 2008–15 while it was housed at Virginia Tech. Students described their work in LISA as having had a positive impact on acquiring technical (94%) and non-technical (95%) statistics skills. Five-sixths (83%) of the students reported that these skills will or have helped them advance in their careers. We call for the integration of stat labs into statistics and data science programs as part of a comprehensive and modern statistics education, and for further research on students’ experience in these labs and the impact on student outcomes.
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Teaching Statistics and Data Science Collaboration via a Community of Practice
Due to the applied nature of statistics and data science, many educators in these fields recognize the need to teach their students how to be effective interdisciplinary collaborators. Some prior research considers different approaches to teaching interdisciplinary collaboration skills. However, missing from this literature are the connections between teaching collaboration and education theory. Thus, there is a lack of understanding about why the various pedagogical approaches may be effective. In this descriptive study, we describe an approach to teaching interdisciplinary collaboration using a Community of Practice (CoP) and highlight connections between potentially reproducible elements of this approach and education theory that explains why this approach may be effective from the perspectives of both education and collaboration theory. Our results show that students and content-area experts recognize this approach to teaching statistical and data science collaboration to be effective. By grounding our methods for teaching statistics and data science collaboration skills in education theory, we focus attention on which aspects can be replicated in other contexts, why they work well, and how they can be improved. We recommend instructors intentionally create a CoP within their courses, encourage peer mentorship, and emphasize a growth mindset.
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- PAR ID:
- 10630704
- Publisher / Repository:
- Taylor & Francis
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education
- ISSN:
- 2693-9169
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 13
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1080/26939169.2024.2422821
