The statistics concept inventory: a pilot study

The statistics concept inventory (SCI) is a multiple choice testing instrument that is being developed to assess student understanding of fundamental statistics concepts and to identify commonly held misconceptions. This study pilot tested the SCI with four different introductory statistics courses with students from a broad range of disciplines. The effects of discipline and gender on performance on the SCI were investigated along with the relationship of mathematics experience, statistics experience, and attitude toward statistics as measured with the survey of attitudes toward statistics (SATS) [Schau, C. et al., 2002]. The results of this study indicate that discipline has a small effect on performance on the SCI. Mathematics majors performed significantly better than social science majors, but no other pair of majors performed significantly different. The effect of gender on performance was significant with males outperforming females. SCI scores were positively correlated with mathematics experience and with attitude scores obtained on the SATS. SCI scores were not found to be correlated with statistics experience.