somewhat decrdecrdeecrreeased. Baaseed BBeecause the rccauuse thhe reeesponse ratesspponnsee rattes
are higher for those students who perfor those students who fo tho e t d n s wh ppeerformed wfof med ell eellll
on the AP SStStatisticstatistics exam and it is rattistit csc eexamexaam m anandd d it iisis rereasonableeasaasonable toono aba lel ttoo
expect that the changed inter the changed intertheh changedh n e intern e est in statistics isst inn statisticss a s c is
related to studentstudentsuden ’ per’ p formance, it seems apprf rm n e i s em a o-
priate to apply the corrpypply the corry h o eection for nonrt f r n n eesponse. Isponse. Ip n e In
other words, the evidence suggests thers, the evidence suggests thers thhe eviideencce suugggestts theeree is suppore is suuppoort t
for both of these corrthh ections. ttii
The percentage estimates, standard errors, and
95% confidence intervals are presented for each item
and response category for each analysis. Because of
the corrections described above, it is appropriate to When asked how exposure to the AP Statistics
consider these results as representative of the entire course material affected their interest in statistics,
population of approximately 230,000 examinees. 40.0% of respondents indicated that exposure some-
The full results of the analyses of the seven items are what increased their interest, and 13.8% indicated
presented in Tables 1–7. that it greatly increased their interest (see Table 2).
This is encouraging, especially given that students
Results
generally stated that interest in statistics was neither
Tables 1–7 are presented in the order that most important nor unimportant in their decision to take
appropriately captures the order in which students’ AP Statistics in the first place.
educational choices are made. First, the analysis The next major decision that students make with
of individuals’ most important reasons for tak- respect to their statistical education is, of course,
ing the AP Statistics class is presented in Table 1. whether to take any college or university courses
Respondents were asked to rate on a scale of one to in the discipline. Table 3 shows that 59.3% of AP
five the importance of each reason in making the Statistics examinees went on to take further courses
decision to take AP Statistics. The reasons that stand in statistics. Table 4 shows the relative importance
out as being different from the mean importance that students choosing to continue their studies
value of 2.89 are the four response values whose of statistics placed on various reasons to continue.
95% confidence limits do not overlap with the over- Overwhelmingly, students indicated that the fact
all mean importance for this item. In particular, the that statistics was required for their major was the
two responses associated with greater importance reason they took their first statistics course. Another
are that the student was interested in mathematics reason that was of significantly greater importance
and the “other reasons” category. The two values than the mean importance for all response values
that are significantly less important than the mean was that students felt confident that they could do
importance level are that the student was thinking well in the course. Interestingly, while they indicat-
of majoring in mathematics or statistics and that ed that feeling confident they would perform well
the student’s high school offered few AP courses, was an important reason, they also indicated that
of which AP Statistics was one. These results, taken thinking it would be an easy course was decidedly
together, indicated that AP Statistics students’ main less important. This finding supports the argument
reason for choosing to take the course was that they that upon completion of the AP Statistics course,
were generally interested in mathematics, but not students’ most important reason for taking statistics
enough to consider majoring in mathematics or was that it was required, but feeling competent to
statistics in college; they did not simply take AP take on course work in statistics at the college level
Statistics because they had few other courses from also weighed heavily in their decision. It is impor-
which to choose. This is reasonable because students tant to note that being interested in statistics seems
were more likely to have been more heavily exposed to be less important in the decisionmaking process,
to mathematics than to statistics, and, as such, their perhaps outweighed by the “requirement” and “con-
preferences for mathematics were likely to be more fidence” options that differ more substantially from
well-formed than for statistics. the mean importance level for this item.
MAY 2009 AMSTAT NEWS 11
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