Statistics Textbooks: Pedagogical Tools or Impediments to Learning?

Abstract

Over the past four years of teaching introductory social statistics I have formulated two explicit course goals: 1) reducing anxieties that surround statistics, and 2) demonstrating that a working knowledgean introductory level understanding of basic statistics benefits all students regardless of major or career aspirations. These goals are similar to Blalock's five goals for teaching statistics (Blalock 1987). However, as he and others have noted, if we are to achieve any of our course goals, we must first recognize and reduce students' math/statistics anxieties (Blalock 1987, pp. 164-165; Schacht and Stewart 1990). Reducing anxiety is the foremost goal because of our students minimum, often insufficient backgrounds (Caine, Doroff, Horowitz, and Wisenbaker 1978; Lundgreen and Fawcett 1980; Blalock 1987; Schacht and Stewart 1990). One explanation for students' insufficient math backgrounds is that they have been filtered out of fields with more stringent math requirements because of a perceived lack of mathematical aptitude (Sells 1978). This may also account for the students' choice of major in sociology and other social science fields. In short, a lack of skills causes the stu-