Improving Student Performance in an Undergraduate Business Statistics Course Using Technology Enhanced Learning

Because statistical analysis requires the ability to use mathematics, students typically are required to take one or more prerequisite math courses prior to enrolling in the business statistics course. Despite these math prerequisites, however, many students find it difficult to learn business statistics.In this study, we use an ordered probit model to analyze the impact of alternative prerequisite math course sequences on the grade performance of 1,684 business and economics statistics students at a large Midwestern university. In addition, we show how imposing a minimum grade requirement of C- for the math prerequisite course would influence student success in the business statistics course. Although several studies have examined the impact of different math skills, our study is the first to provide a detailed analysis of the impact of different prerequisite math course sequences on student performance in business statistics. We demonstrate that, other things the same, taking more math credit hours, taking math courses that emphasize calculus, and imposing a minimum grade of C- on the prerequisite math course have significant positive impacts on student grade performance in the business and economics statistics course.

This paper describes how to incorporate data from a randomized controlled trial in rural Uganda into teaching an undergraduate business statistics course. The semester-length classroom exercise includes discussions and brainstorming sessions, which allow students to imagine how they would execute a field experiment and analyze the data. Students become familiar with one data set as they use it to supplement textbook examples of hypothesis testing, analysis of variance applications, and simple linear regression. The article discusses the background of the sustainability challenge of 2.8 billion people in the world cooking with solid fuels, the rollout and schedule of integrating field-experiment data into the classroom, and student evaluations of the exercise. The target audience is undergraduate statistics students and/or instructors interested in demonstrating how textbook statistics are used to better understand a real-world sustainability challenge.

Aim/Purpose: The main aim of the research is to examine the performance of second language English speaking students enrolled in the Business Statistics course and to investigate the academic performance of students when taught under the constructivist and non-constructivist approaches in a classroom environment. Background: There are different learning theories that are established based on how students learn. Each of these theories has its own benefits based on the different type of learners and context of the environment. The students in this research are new to the University environment and to a challenging technical course like Business Statistics. This research has been carried out to see the effectiveness of the constructivist approach in motivating and increasing the student engagement and their academic performance. Methodology : A total of 1373 students were involved in the quasi-experiment method using Stratified Sampling Method from the year 2015 until 2016. Contribution: To consider curriculum adjustments for first year programs and implications for teacher education. Findings: The t-test for unequal variances was used to understand the mean score. Results indicate students have high motivation level and achieve higher mean scores when they are taught using the constructivist teaching approach compared to the non-constructivist teaching approach. Recommendations for Practitioners: To consider the challenges faced by first year students and create a teaching approach that fits their needs. Recommendation for Researchers: To explore in depth other teaching approaches of the Business Statistics course in improving students’ academic performance. Impact on Society : The constructivist approach will enable learning to be enjoyable and students to be more confident. Future Research: The research will assist other lectures teaching Business Statistics in creating a more conducive environment to encourage second language English speaking students to overcome their shyness and be more engaged.

[This Proceedings paper was revised and published in Informing Science: the International Journal of an Emerging Transdiscipline (InfoSci)] Aim/Purpose: The main aim of the research is to examine the performance of second language English speaking students enrolled in the Business Statistics course and to investigate the academic performance of students when taught under the constructivist and non-constructivist approaches in a classroom environment. Background: There are different learning theories that are established based on how students learn. Each of these theories has its own benefits based on the different type of learners and context of the environment. The students in this research are new to the University environment and to a challenging technical course like Business Statistics. This research has been carried out to see the effectiveness of the constructivist approach in motivating and increasing the student engagement and their academic performance. Methodology: A total of 1373 students were involved in the quasi-experiment method using Stratified Sampling Method from the year 2015 until 2016. Contribution: To consider curriculum adjustments for first year programs and implications for teacher education. Findings: The t-test for unequal variances was used to understand the mean score. Results indicate students have high motivation level and achieve higher mean scores when they are taught using the constructivist teaching approach compared to the non-constructivist teaching approach. Recommendations for Practitioners : To consider the challenges faced by first year students and create a teaching approach that fits their needs. Recommendation for Researchers: To explore in depth other teaching approaches of the Business Statistics course in improving students’ academic performance. Impact on Society: The constructivist approach will enable learning to be enjoyable and students to be more confident. Future Research: The research will assist other lectures teaching Business Statistics in creating a more conducive environment to encourage second language English speaking students to overcome their shyness and be more engaged.

The purpose of this study was to measure the comprehension of basic mathematical skills of students enrolled in statistics classes at a large regional university, and to determine if the scores earned on a basic math skills test are useful in forecasting student performance in these statistics classes, and to determine if students’ basic math skills have changed over time. The results showed that 22 percent of the students’ final grades in business statistics courses were explained by their scores on this skills test. These findings may be of use to statistics faculty in identifying students who experience difficulties in these courses in the future. The current students’ scores were compared to scores from a test previously given to students in 1992/1993. The students from the first group had significantly higher scores than the current group of students.

This paper describes changing the way a business statistics course is taught through the use of just-in-time teaching methods. Implementing this method allowed for more time in the class to be spent focused on problem solving, resulting in students being able to handle more difficult problems. Students’ perceptions of the just-in-time assignments were overall positive.

In this 2011 investigation, a modified Delphi technique was introduced to determine whether an informed group of post-secondary online faculty and students could arrive at a consensus regarding the importance of previously recognized verbal immediacy behaviors. Two expert panels were presented with Gorham’s (1988) Verbal Immediacy Scale and tasked with determining those behaviors perceived as being the most important in the online learning venue. The result of the study confirmed that a consensus of opinion between online students and faculty is indeed possible, albeit resulting in a new iteration of Gorham’s scale. A discussion of the findings suggests that further consideration for the development of an updated version of a verbal immediacy scale specific to online instructional behaviors may be warranted.

Business statistics courses are not typically popular, and students often find the examples and textbook problems tedious and irrelevant. In this article, the author describes a pedagogy project that keeps students interested and working effectively in a large class. Through a student survey, the author gathered data on students' university experience and demographics. The class used the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) data set for demonstration of a range of statistical techniques. The student survey instrument and data set provided examples and problems for each of the major topics of the course. Student comments and performance demonstrated the project's positive results.

Most homework sets in statistics courses are constructed so that students concentrate or “mass” their practice on a certain topic in one problem set. Distributed practice homework sets include review problems in each set so that practice on a topic is distributed across problem sets. There is a body of research that points to the efficacy of distributed practice for developing a variety of skills from word recall to surgical techniques. A trial was conducted in several sections of a business statistics course where students were randomly assigned to either have massed practice homework sets or distributed practice homework sets. The two groups were then compared on the course assessments. The results show some evidence for the efficacy of distributed practice homework sets, although this effect may be modified significantly by the instructor or by a Hawthorne effect.

Statistics courses are frequently perceived by tertiary students as extremely difficult and anxiety-inducing, negatively impacting student outcomes and experiences. To address this, the present study considered worked example videos (where an instructor demonstrates the solution to a problem while narrating the process) as a blended learning approach for enhancing an introductory business statistics course taken by 2265 students over three semesters. Impact was evaluated with video usage, academic performance, and student survey data. Students heavily utilised worked example videos before assessment deadlines, frequently employing active learning strategies during their engagements. Improvements in academic performance and course satisfaction were observed compared to previous cohorts. This demonstrates worked example videos are well-suited to large-enrolment courses due to their highly scalable capacity to deliver timely support for learning, which individuals can tailor to their diverse needs.

Current literature outlines the documented need for improved communication during patient medication counseling. Although many tools exist, there needs to be a national standardized tool that complies with federal and state law, to objectively measure student pharmacist performance during patient counseling in the community pharmacy setting. The primary objective of this study is to perform an initial analysis of the internal consistency reliability of a patient medication counseling rubric designed with an Indian Health Services theoretical framework. Secondary objectives include measuring changes in student performance over the time of the study. The 18-item rubric was developed to objectively measure student pharmacist performance during patient medication counseling sessions in a 21-h Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experience (IPPE) course. The community-pharmacy-based IPPE patient counseling course evaluates students' communication skills and patient-centered counseling techniques in live and simulated patient counseling sessions. Three pharmacist evaluators assessed a total of 247 student counseling sessions. The rubric's internal consistency reliability was analyzed, and student performance improvement was observed within the course. Students' performance was evaluated as “meets expectations” in most live and simulated sessions. However, an independent groups t-test showed that the mean performance score for the live counseling sessions (2.59, SD = 0.29) was higher (p < 0.001) than that for the simulated counseling sessions (2.35, SD = 0.35). Students' performance in the course improved over three weeks [Week 1: mean (SD) = 2.29 (0.32), Week 2: mean (SD) = 2.44 (0.33), Week 3: mean (SD) = 2.62 (0.29); p < 0.001]. A Tukey-Kramer comparison post hoc test found a significant increase in the mean performance scores between weeks (p < 0.05). The overall internal consistency reliability of the counseling rubric was determined acceptable, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.75. Further study is required, including the assessment of inter-rater reliability, factor analysis, variable analysis, and use in other states with patient confirmation testing necessary to validate the rubric for use with student pharmacists in the community pharmacy setting.

Measuring progress in entrepreneurship education

The remarkable growth of electronic data in the Mathematics department provides the opportunities to extract some meaningful information from this large capacity of data. The development of the data in the mining field ensures the educational data to improve the quality of the educational processes and to classify the components that affected the performance of the students in engineering statistics course. Thus, in this study, Kanri Distance Calculator (KDC) was utilized to analyze the performance of undergraduate students in Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) during the academic session 2015/2016 in semester 2. The performance of the students was evaluated based on two aspects. First, the academic achievement of the students from the engineering statistics course during semester 2 2015/2016 was analyzed. Second, the possible variables that affect the performance of students in this course were classified. Thus, in this study, two significant groups of students were recognized i.e. (i) the students who achieved below 60% average, and (ii) the students who achieved above 60% average that can be referred as off-target and target group respectively. Based on the analysis of this study, the two variables (i.e. variables X3 and X7) affect the performance of the students and cause the students to obtain average marks lower than 60%. The results indicate that, by focusing on the possible variables that affect the academic performance of the students, it is possible to provide an appropriate warning and support to the students below average achievement, and at the same time to provide advice and opportunities to high-performance students based on the past experience about the obtained components.

This study examines the impact of Scoreboard for Excel, an automated grading tool with real-time feedback, in undergraduate business statistics. Compared with three prior semesters, students using Scoreboard consistently outperformed earlier cohorts. Gains occurred regardless of integrity controls, prior statistics, or Excel experience. Contrary to expectations, even when assignments were identical, students did not gain from cheating. These results suggest Scoreboard not only raises achievement but also reduces incentives for dishonest shortcuts, with a “leveling effect” that helps less experienced students match their peers.

Integrating Quality Control Concepts into the Introductory Business Statistics Course