Carnegie Mellon University

Statistical Pedagogy & Educational Research

The Statistical Pedagogy & Educational Research group engages in a combination of research, pedagogy, and classroom training. Members are interested in updating and modernizing curriculum and assessment, pedagogical philosophy and development, best classroom practices, student engagement, and outreach to a diverse community.

Current work includes:

  • Conducting think-aloud interview studies to design more effective assessment questions for statistical misconceptions, and to understand how students learn statistics
  • Understanding how students learn to write in statistics courses, how statistical writing differs from other genres, and how best to develop statistical writing skills
  • Building interactive tools for teaching statistics and for students to analyze data, including the Integrated Statistics Learning Environment

Related Grants     Publications and Presentations

Department Members with this Research Interest

18 bios displayed.

Eli Ben-Michael

Eli Ben-Michael

Assistant Professor, joint with Heinz College

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Zach Branson

Zach Branson

Assistant Teaching Professor (on leave Fall 2024)

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Peter Freeman

Peter Freeman

Associate Teaching Professor, Director of the Undergraduate Program

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Spencer Koerner

Spencer Koerner

Lecturer - Special Faculty

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Nynke  Niezink

Nynke Niezink

Assistant Professor

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Rebecca  Nugent

Rebecca Nugent

Fienberg Professor of Statistics & Data Science/Dept. Head

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Aaditya  Ramdas

Aaditya Ramdas

Associate Professor

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Alex Reinhart

Alex Reinhart

Associate Teaching Professor

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Gordon  Weinberg

Gordon Weinberg

Lecturer - Special Faculty

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Ron Yurko

Ron Yurko

Assistant Teaching Professor

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Collaborators

Related Grants

Awarded:

  • Dietrich College Research Seed Grant, $10,000. Supporting the pilot of Docuscope Write & Audit in Statistics & Data Science courses.
  • Using Think-Aloud Interviews and Cognitive Task Analysis to Identify Misconceptions in Undergraduate Statistics Education. Carnegie Mellon ProSEED/Crosswalk program, $1000, Spring 2019.
    PIs: Josue Orellana, Mikaela Meyer.
  • Women in Statistics at CMU: Fostering Collaboration through Formal Mentorship. Carnegie Mellon ProSEED/Crosswalk Program, $1700, Spring/Summer 2018
    PIs: Frisoli, Gallagher, Luby (alphabetical order). Grant submitted by Women in Statistics group.

Publications and Presentations

  • B Markey, D W Brown, M Laudenbach, and A Kohler. Dense and Disconnected: Analyzing the Sedimented Style of ChatGPT-Generated Text at Scale. Written Communication, August 2024.
  • M Laudenbach, D W Brown, Z Guo, S Ishizaki, A Reinhart, and G Weinberg. Visualizing formative feedback in statistics writing: An exploratory study of student motivation using DocuScope Write & Audit. Assessing Writing 60, 100830, April 2024.
  • A Reinhart, C Evans, A Luby, J Orellana, M Meyer, J Wieczorek, P Elliott, P Burckhardt & R Nugent. Think-aloud interviews: A tool for exploring student statistical reasoning. Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education 30 (2), pp. 100-113, July 2022.
  • C Evans, A Reinhart, P Burckhardt, R Nugent, & G Weinberg. Exploring how students reason about correlation and causation. eCOTS 2020. Poster
  • M Meyer, J Orellana, A Reinhart. Using Cognitive Task Analysis to Uncover Misconceptions in Statistical Inference Courses. eCOTS 2020. Poster
  • P Burckhardt, P W Elliott, C Evans, A Luby, M Meyer, J Orellana, J Wieczorek, R Nugent & A Reinhart. Writing practical pre- and post-tests for concepts in introductory courses, CMU Eberly Teaching and Learning Summit, November 2019. Poster.
  • M Meyer, J Orellana, A Reinhart. Using Think-Aloud Interviews and Cognitive Task Analysis to Identify Misconceptions in Undergraduate Statistics Education, Joint Statistical Meetings, July 2019. Poster
  • P Burckhardt, C Genovese, R Nugent, R Yurko. Incorporating Real-Time Clustering of Student Responses into an E-Learning System, Joint Statistical Meetings, July 2019. Poster
  • A Reinhart, P Burckhardt, P W Elliott, C Evans, A Luby, M Meyer, J Orellana, R Yurko, G Weinberg, J Wieczorek & R Nugent. Using think-aloud interviews to assess student understanding of statistics concepts. Breakout session. US Conference on Teaching Statistics (USCOTS), May 2019. Abstract, slides, handout
  • R Nugent, R Yurko, P Burckhardt & F Kovacs. "Many Students, One Dataset": Using ISLE to Teach Reproducibility and the Impact of Data Analysis Decisions on Conclusions. Breakout session. US Conference on Teaching Statistics (USCOTS), May 2019. Abstract
  • P Burckhardt, P W Elliott, C Evans, S Hyun, K Lin, A Luby, C P Makris, M Meyer, J Orellana, R Yurko, G Weinberg, J Wieczorek, R Nugent & A Reinhart. Developing an assessment for concepts in introductory statistics and data science. CMU Eberly Teaching and Learning Summit, October 2018. Poster. (People's Choice Award winner)
  • Burckhardt P, Nugent R, Genovese C. How students make sense of data on an e-learning platform. Joint Statistical Meetings, Vancouver, July-August 2018.
  • Burckhardt P, Chouldechova A, Nugent R. TeachIT: Turning the Classroom into a Research Laboratory via Interactive E-Learning Tools. Invited paper. Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Teaching Statistics (ICOTS10, July, 2018), Kyoto, Japan. Paper
  • Yurko R, Nugent R, P Burckhardt. Detecting Data Analysis Patterns in Text and Graphs to Characterize Student Learning in an Introductory Statistics & Data Science Course, Classification Society Annual Meeting, June 2018.
  • Yurko R, Nugent R. Using text analysis to characterize student learning in an introductory statistics & data science course, Electronic Conference On Teaching Statistics (eCOTS), May 2018. Video poster
  • S Hyun, P Burckhardt, P Elliott, C Evans, K Lin, A Luby, C P Makris, J Orellana, A Reinhart, J Wieczorek, R Yurko, G Weinberg & R Nugent. Identifying misconceptions of introductory data science using a think-aloud protocol, Electronic Conference on Teaching Statistics (eCOTS), May 2018. Video poster
  • Burckhardt P, Nugent R, Genovese C. Learning Data Science with the Help of a Data Exploration Tool. Electronic Conference On Teaching Statistics (eCOTS), May 2018. Video poster
  • Burckhardt P, Chouldechova A, Nugent R. The ISLE Experience: Enhancing Classroom Instruction with Interactive E-Learning Tools, CMU Eberly Teaching and Learning Summit, October 2017.
  • Burckhardt P, Elliott P, Hyun S, Lin K, Luby A, Makris CP, Orellana J, Reinhart A, Wieczorek J, Weinberg G, Nugent R. Assessment of Student Learning and Misconception Identification in Intro Statistics, CMU Eberly Teaching and Learning Summit, October 2017. Poster