Teaching Statistics with Scenarios to Foster Critical Thinking
29 Pages Posted: 15 Jan 2016
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: Suggested Citation