Student Perceptions of Assessment Strategies in a Multivariate Statistics Course

Abstract

The purposes of this paper are to illustrate the use of several assessment strategies in an advanced course in statistics, and to present the results of student ratings for each assessment strategy in terms of difficulty, appropriateness, level of learning achieved, and preference. The assessment strategies used include structured data analysis assignments, open-ended data analysis assignments, reviews of applied research articles, and annotating computer output from multivariate software procedures. Findings indicate that students “prefer” instructor-directed or structured assignments overall, but feel they learn the most when the assessment is unstructured and requires greater self-direction. Suggestions for incorporating these assessment strategies into the multivariate classroom, as well as examples of each strategy, are included in this study.

• Instruction
• Multivariate analysis
• Student perceptions

Acknowledgement

The author gratefully acknowledges the participation of her EPSY 346 students in developing this work, as well as the helpful comments and suggestions of several reviewers during the preparation of this manuscript.