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Study of Students’ Prior Statistical Knowledge and Attitude

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Conference

2024 South East Section Meeting

Location

Marietta, Georgia

Publication Date

March 10, 2024

Start Date

March 10, 2024

End Date

March 12, 2024

Page Count

8

DOI

10.18260/1-2--45563

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/45563

Download Count

30

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Paper Authors

biography

Simon Thomas Ghanat P.E. The Citadel

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Dr. Simon Ghanat is an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at The Citadel (Charleston, S.C.). He received his Ph.D., M.S., and B.S. degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Arizona State University. His research interests include Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Education.

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Abstract

As a requirement for graduation, Civil and Construction majors at University X must take a Probability and Statistics course in their Junior year. A background knowledge probe (pre-test) was developed based on key elementary statistical concepts. Questions on the pretest asked students to calculate descriptive statistics, simple probability, and to describe a histogram. The pre-test was administered at the beginning of the course to measure student’s prior statistical knowledge and to identify student misconceptions at the beginning of the term. A survey of student attitudes (i.e., affect, cognitive, value, difficulty, interest, and effort) toward statistics was also administered at the beginning of the semester. This study examines the pre-test data and the survey of students’ attitude toward statistics at University X.

Ghanat, S. T. (2024, March), Study of Students’ Prior Statistical Knowledge and Attitude Paper presented at 2024 South East Section Meeting, Marietta, Georgia. 10.18260/1-2--45563

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