• How did your exposure to the AP Statistics
course material affect your interest in statistics?
Table 2 Analysis of Survey Item #3
“How did your exposure to the AP Statistics course
• Did you take any statistics courses in college?
material affect your interest in statistics?”
Depending upon the individual’s response, he
or she was asked one of the following questions:
Standard
Estimate of
95% Confidence Limits
Response Value Error of
Percent
Percent
Lower Upper
—How important were each of the following
(a)(b)(c)(d)(e)
reasons that you took that first statistics
course? (See Table 4 for the list of response
Greatly Decreased 13.8% 0.82 12.2% 15.4%
options.)
Somewhat Decreased 7.5% 1.17 5.2% 9.8%
—How important were each of the following
No Effect 24.9% 1.63 21.7% 28.1% reasons why you did not take any statistics
courses in college? (See Table 5 for the list of
Somewhat Increased 40.0% 2.22 35.7% 44.4%
response options.)
Greatly Increased 13.8% 1.41 11.0% 16.6%
—How did your exposure to the first statistics
Source: The College Board
course in college affect your interest in
Note: Estimates have been corrected for (1) sample selection probability
statistics?
and (2) unit nonresponse probability.
—Did you take any additional statistics courses
in college beyond that first statistics course?
—What is or was your [undergraduate]
Table 3 Analysis of Survey Item #4
major in college?
“How did your exposure to the AP Statistics course
material affect your interest in statistics?”
For the three “importance” questions, respon-
Standard
dents were asked to rate the importance of each
Estimate of
95% Confidence Limits
Response Value Error of
reason on a scale of one to five, with one being “not
Percent
Percent
Lower Upper
at all important” and five being “extremely impor-
(a)(b)(c)(d)(e)
tant”; no interim values were labeled. When rating
Yes 59 .3% 2.42 54.5% 64.1%
the extent to which exposure to either AP Statistics
or respondents’ first college course in statistics
No 39.9% 2.40 35.1% 44.6%
affected interest in statistics, the response options
Source: The College Board were “greatly decreased,” “somewhat decreased,”
Note: Estimates have been corrected for (1) sample selection probability “no effect,” “somewhat increased,” and “greatly
and (2) unit nonresponse probability.
increased.” Other survey items were related to
credit- and placement-granting policies of colleges
and universities, students’ choice of major, and the
extent to which respondents’ current job involves
the application and interpretation of statistics. These
questions were not included in this analysis because
some were not relevant to the immediate goals of
this survey, and others—such as the one relating to
employment—had such small response rates.
Method
Sampling Plan and Results
This work began in the summer of 2005, and in
order to identify a range of past examinees from
those who may currently be enrolled in college
or university to those who have completed their
postsecondary study and begun careers, the sample
was drawn from all AP Statistics examinees from
the 1997 through 2003 administrations who lived
in the United States at the time of examination.
The factors directly controlled for when designing
the sampling scheme included year of examina-
tion, exam grade, gender, and the six U.S. regions
8 AMSTAT NEWS MAY 2009
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84