A national study on the teaching of statistics by Mexican college lecturers

Abstract Research in statistics education has contributed to the reform of statistics curricula in many countries. It has been argued that statistics has its own ways of thinking, so statistics education needs to be approached differently from mathematics. Learning how lecturers teach and assess statistics in Mexico provides the knowledge required to review their current practices and take actions to improve the teaching and learning. In this context, we report on a national research project to characterize the teaching and assessment of statistics among Mexican college lecturers. We designed a 76-item survey based on six recommendations from the Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE): teach statistical thinking; focus on conceptual understanding; integrate real data with a context and purpose; foster active learning; use technology to explore concepts and analyze data; and use assessments to examine and evaluate student learning. To validate the survey, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were applied to the responses of 750 lecturers. We explore how well the lecturers’ teaching and assessment practices aligned with the GAISE recommendations and examine the academic variables associated with these practices. Our findings show the need to offer lecturers statistical learning experiences to improve their use of technology and diversify their assessment activities to fulfill the GAISE recommendations better. Experience in data analysis, involving statistical and technological knowledge, was one of the variables with the highest correlations. However, these were weak associations with the lecturers’ teaching and assessment practices. Further research is needed to explore these associations more deeply.