New Perspectives in Science Education

A common problem academic staff must face when imparting courses of quantitative subjects, and more specifically when doing so in most of the degrees on the field of social sciences in Spanish universities, is student’s reticence of dealing with subjects requiring a good mathematical base.

This is the case of statistics, a subject with a huge potential in terms of its usefulness and applicability in almost all fields (social fields, humanities, health, science...), which should be acknowledged as such by students.

We believe a way to achieve this goal is to make statistics a friendlier subject for students’ point of view. In order to get this, teachers shall reinvent if necessary their way of lecturing, by using the appropriate tools to arouse students' curiosity, turning this reluctance into a good predisposition.

With this in mind, an activity has been developed and implemented in the course of Statistical Inference, a subject being imparted in one of the many degrees from the Social branch in the Universitat de València. Its purpose is to encourage collaborative work so that the student, in a way similar to playing a game, gains and reinforces previously acquired inferential concepts. During this process they are not alone but groups of around 6 students are made. As it happens in basketball matches, these groups compete against each other, so that the group which correctly answers more questions is the winner of the activity and, as in any game or competition, a second and third position are considered. Nonetheless there is a common reward for all, as for a few hours they can enjoy the subject in a most different way, while becoming the core in which everyone try their best to come out on top.

Additionally, and in order to further develop fellowship between students, the composition of the groups is determined by the teacher in charge of this activity, and only a few minutes before it begins does it become public who the members of each team are. When deciding the members of each group, the teacher follows the heterogeneity criterion in a way such that students inside each group have a different degree of statistical knowledge and are therefore forced to work as a team in order to achieve the proposed objective.

Thus, in this paper the results of its use throughout various promotions are evaluated, concluding a significantly positive effect on both the motivation and learning processes.