| dc.description.abstract | Statistics as a course has become a computerised teaching subject due to the changing needs
of the students who often use computers to process, and analyse various data sets. Recent
technological developments have led to the avai labi Iity of resources of the highest qual ity for
Statistical teaching, including Computer Assisted Statistics Textbooks \CAST). The purpose
of this study was to illustrate the added benefit of using an interactive quantitative method of
teaching Statistics over the historical usual classroom teaching at the Kenya Institute of
Management (KIM). As part of the objective, this study attempted to conduct educational
experiments at different times with different students leading to a quantitative analysis where
potential confounding effects are demonstrated and adds rigor to the study using convenient
sampling without compromising student's education. This study was conducted at KIM over
a period of nine months. Past results on Statistics course obtained by the students taught by
researcher(Manyalla) and colleague teacher(Margaret) before CAST usage were compared
with results obtained when CAST was used in the teaching of Statistics. A total of 167
students were investigated in this study as having used CAST or not. Out of these, 77
Statistics students were taught using CAST while 90 were taught with the use of the
traditional method. An analysis of past Statistics' results data showed that the marks were on
average about 10% higher than the average marks our students were getting before using
CAST. Overall, the average mark for the 90 students who did not use CAST was 59%, and
this was close to the national average of 57% in Statistics course. It was just over 70% for the
77 students who used CAST. Future studies are needed to determine the effectiveness of
CAST for professional education and training in Statistics department from the various KIM
branches and in other institutions where Statistics module is offered. | en_US |
