A Pedagogic Information System (APIS) in a Web-Based Statistics Classroom

This study investigated the potential application of web-based pedagogy for teachers of elementary statistics, using A Pedagogical Information System (APIS), in order to explore ways in which teachers can enhance instruction via technology in the classroom. This information system would provide new opportunities for practical teacher education, given that the literature on statistics pedagogy and web-based teaching and learning is sparse. The purpose of the study was to examine issues of efficacy, efficiency, and effectiveness of the use of Internet websites in the instruction of introductory statistics at the college level. The design of the study was qualitative and used a phenomenological interpretive method. The participants in this study were four instructors of introductory statistics courses at the undergraduate level of higher education in a northeastern state in the United States. They were interviewed individually for approximately 60 minutes in a semi-structured format in which they discussed their experiences and perceptions about using Internet sources for instruction of students in Introductory Statistics. The results of the study indicated that teachers welcomed incorporating technology into their classrooms. Participants found that having students with different learning styles, allocating time to deal with details, and having difficulty managing the interplay between topics as being key problems that could arise in the organization of a web-based introduction to an elementary statistics course. Although all participants agreed that there is a lack of uniformity among statistical topics, most wanted to emphasize descriptive statistics, distributions, probability, inference, confidence intervals, and regression. They acknowledged that web-based learning would radically alter student and teacher roles, so that the teacher would become a mentor and students would become active learners. Instruction would be geared more to practical applications than to theory. Instructors would have to make decisions about how much web-based information they would use and would have to become knowledgeable about web content.