Student Failure in Business Statistics

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Abstract

This article questions the quality of intertwined teaching and learning of business statistics with a focus on student learning. It claims that the “system” and instructors together are spoiling the students. The former adversely restricts the students’ ability to develop learning skills, which yields a lower quality of learning than expected. The article starts with reported facts on student failure in a business statistics course across the author’s university, including low class performance statistics despite new teaching methods and reforms suggested in previously published literature. It qualitatively contrasts present-day teaching and learning to that of the 1960s and 1970s, which let students self-discover how to learn. It also quantitatively measures student learning difficulty and its root causes. The article presents an experimental change in instructors’ teaching and learning in order to achieve higher student success rates and advancement. Although the article is constructed based on our own data in our own college environment, it might also be of some value to others.