Table 4 Analysis of Survey Item #8
“How important were each of the following reasons that you took that first [college/university] statistics course?”
Estimate Standard
95% Confidence Limits
Reason of Mean Error of Mean
for Mean Importance
Importance* Importance
Lower Upper
(a)(b)(c)(d)(e)
It was required for your degree or major 4.55 † 0.04 4.47 4.63
You were interested in statistics 2.88 † 0.07 2.75 3.02
You felt confident you could do well in that course 3.64 † 0.06 3.52 3.76
You thought it would be an easy course to take 2.73 † 0.12 2.49 2.97
Other reasons 1.58 † 0.02 1.53 1.63
Mean Importance of All Responses 3.32 0.05 3.22 3.43
* Responents were asked to rate the importance of each reason on a scale of one to five, with one being “not at all important” and five being “extremely
important.” No interim values were labeled.
† Significantly different from the mean importance of all responses for this item at a 95 percent confidence level.
Source: The College Board
Note: Estimates have been corrected for (1) sample selection probability and (2) unit nonresponse probability.
Table 5 Analysis of Survey Item #5
“How important were each of the following reasons why you did not take any statistics courses in college?”
Estimate Standard
95% Confidence Limits
Reason of Mean Error of Mean
for Mean Importance
Importance* Importance
Lower Upper
(a)(b)(c)(d)(e)
It was not required for my degree 3.79 † 0.03 3.72 3.86
AP Statistics credit satisfied all statistics requirements for the degree 2.55 † 0.05 2.44 2.65
Was not interested in statistics 2.82 † 0.04 2.73 2.90
Was afraid I would not do well in a statistics course 1.30 † 0.01 1.28 1.32
Thought it would be a difficult course to take 1.37 † 0.02 1.32 1.42
Other reasons 2.73 0.25 2.10 3.37
Mean Importance of All Responses 2.40 0.02 2.36 2.43
* Responents were asked to rate the importance of each reason on a scale of one to five, with one being “not at all important” and five being “extremely
important.” No interim values were labeled.
† Significantly different from the mean importance of all responses for this item at a 95 percent confidence level.
Source: The College Board
Note: Estimates have been corrected for (1) sample selection probability and (2) unit nonresponse probability.
defined by the College Board. One important note sampling frame. At the end of the data-collection
is that students who took the AP Statistics course period, 408 respondents returned the questionnaire—
in their high school but did not subsequently take 177 by mail and 231 via the web—which yielded
the AP Statistics examination were not included a response rate of 19% and, after accounting for
in the sample because the contact information a total of 442 undeliverable packages and refusals,
for these students was not available. The final a completion rate of 24%. (See the appendix to the
sample of 2,143 examinees was drawn from the full report at
http://professionals.collegeboard.com/
nearly 230,000 AP Statistics examinees in the data-reports-research/cb/ap-statistics-education-choices.)
MAY 2009 AMSTAT NEWS 9
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