I have found that students who spent a lot of time working through the process of calculating conditional probabilities for screening tests grew to understand the “why” as well as the “how” of the process. We use what we have to speak and to listen, and as we do so we gain an understanding of how language works. When we learn to speak, we do not wait until we understand grammatical structure before saying anything. The understanding comes as you do the work. Understanding comes with application, not before.ĭo not wait until you understand what you are doing before you get started. So really the first principle should really be “statistics is learned by doing correctly”. Or if you are using an on-line resource, make sure you check your answers as you go, so that you gain from the feedback and avoid developing bad habits. It is very important that you check what you are doing, as it is detrimental to practise something in the wrong way. Given a choice, do the exercises that have answers available. On-line materials have many practice exercises. Good textbooks have good practice exercises.
Your teacher should provide you with worthwhile practice activities, and helpful timely feedback. You need to practise at the skills that are needed by a statistician, which include logical thinking, interpretation, judgment and writing. But the most important way to learn statistics is by doing. It is good to read the notes and the textbook, and to look up things on the internet and even to watch Youtube videos if they are good ones. If you want to learn statistics, you need to put in time. One of the best predictors of success in any subject is how much time you spent on it. I’d love to hear from other teachers as I add to my list of principles. I’m turning them into a poster, which I will make available for you to printing later. I present principles that will help you to learn statistics. The blog this week and next is devoted to students. Most of my posts are directed at teachers and how to teach statistics.
0 kommentar(er)
