Teaching Statistics with Scenarios to Foster Critical Thinking

29 Pages Posted: 15 Jan 2016

See all articles by Hershey H. Friedman

Hershey H. Friedman

Brooklyn College of the City University of New York

Martin Frankel

Baruch College, CUNY

Linda Weiser Friedman

Baruch College, CUNY - Zicklin School of Business; CUNY - The Graduate Center

Date Written: January 13, 2016

Abstract

The knowledge economy and the digital age have changed the nature of work and management. More people than ever before need to master critical thinking skills. This paper proposes a set of 15 scenarios and where they may be used in the context of a one-semester course in statistics. Scenarios are chosen for their relevance, are from the fields of medicine, school admissions, institutional rankings, criminology, business, quality control and pharmaceutical research. Individuals who wish to sharpen their critical thinking skills may benefit from this paper.

Keywords: Critical thinking, teaching with scenarios, assessment, loaded questions, education, deceptive school rankings, miscarriage of justice, misuse of statistics, healthcare statistics, correlation and causality

JEL Classification: A22, C00, C10, C40, I10, I20, I21, I29

Suggested Citation

Friedman, Hershey H. and Frankel, Martin and Friedman, Linda Weiser, Teaching Statistics with Scenarios to Foster Critical Thinking (January 13, 2016). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2715044 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2715044

Hershey H. Friedman (Contact Author)

Brooklyn College of the City University of New York ( email )

Martin Frankel

Baruch College, CUNY ( email )

17 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10010
United States

Linda Weiser Friedman

Baruch College, CUNY - Zicklin School of Business ( email )

17 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10010
United States

HOME PAGE: http://cisnet.baruch.cuny.edu/friedman/

CUNY - The Graduate Center

365 Fifth Avenue
New York,, NY 10016
United States

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