Using Real Data in a quantitative methods course to enhance teachers’ and school leaders’ statistical literacy

Engaging part-time Master of Education students in the study of quantitative research methods is challenging. The majority of them lead busy lives as teachers and/or education leaders, attend their MEd classes in the evenings and plan to engage in small-scale qualitative research for their theses. I...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Heinz, Manuela
Tipo de recurso: capítulo de libro
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV)
Repositorio:RiuNet. Repositorio Institucional de la Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:riunet.upv.es:10251/145781
Acceso en línea:https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/145781
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Higher Education
Learning
Educational systems
Teaching
Quantitative methods
Pedagogy
Teacher professional learning
statistics
Real data
Leadership
Literacy
Engagement
Descripción
Sumario:Engaging part-time Master of Education students in the study of quantitative research methods is challenging. The majority of them lead busy lives as teachers and/or education leaders, attend their MEd classes in the evenings and plan to engage in small-scale qualitative research for their theses. In this context, it has been hard to motivate students to engage critically and deeply with quantitative research methods. A widespread deficit view of their own competency in mathematics and computing, which are often considered essential, further compounds the problem. This paper describes the redesign of a quantitative methods module and the resulting changed experiences of students. Findings from this practitioner research study point to the positive impact of using a real national data set – the Growing Up in Ireland Dataset – on students’ engagement and appreciation of the value of quantitative research in education.