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Enhancing Students Learning Using Random Number GenerationBy Arthur Dryver, PhD1 and Wasita Boonsathorn, PhD2

1Graduate School of Business Administration, NIDAEmail: dryver@gmail.com URL: www.LearnViaWeb.com2School of Human Resource Development, NIDA

1My Background High LevelPresently teaching within the School of Business Administration at NIDA, Bangkok Thailand (Been there over 9- years)

Worked in consulting in America for 4 years first firm worked for was PriceWaterhouseCoopers

Ph.D. in Statistics from Pennsylvania State University

Undergraduate at Rice University, TX

SchoolWork

Due one week or moreFeedback a month

ASAP Sometimes immediate feedback alsoThe amount of examples for going from confusion to understanding differs for each student

I often ask myself two main questionsHow can I give all my students at least access to all the examples they may need to understand at least the basic material?

How do I enhance learning for all students without simply forcing everyone to do a ton of examples?

This presentation is mostly about answering those 2 main questionsFinally, Ill go over the direction I selected and why.OutlineThe power of random number generation

Some platforms for leveraging random number generation:R, Sweave, and LaTeXMicrosoft ExcelOnline and JSP

Summary

The power of random number generationWith a focus on teaching statistics

Why use random number generation?Simulate realistic from small to large datasets.One cant find real data and many examples for everything taught.

Creating numbers just off the top of your head is limited and can be time consuming in its own way when trying to think of all the scenarios and making a good dataset for students to work with. Impossible if want a large dataset

Random Number Generation for Teaching Applied StatisticsTeachers, wanting to avoid present students copying from previous batches of students in their class, would have to create new problems, at least new numbers for the problems each year.Even further individual assignments so no direct copying.

Many students consider knowing the answer as understanding, which is often not true.For example, there is a big difference between knowing that 2+2=4 and understanding addition.

Random Number Generation for Teaching Applied StatisticsTo provide students with an ample number of problems to practice and homework, quizzes, etc., can be a large amount of work for the teacher each year.

For a concrete example of how even something simple as reading computer output could require a lot of examples imagine a one sample t-test. How many different scenarios are there when looking at two-sided p-value from computer output?

How many different scenarios are there when looking at two-sided p-value from computer output?There are 5, a two-sided test and then 4 different scenarios for converting the two-sided p-value into a 1-sided:

Thus for only 3 examples of each possible scenario of a one sample t-test the instructor needs to create 15 examples.

pval2s stands for 2 sided p-valueSPSSWorkload Using Random Number Generation

All from data simulation to analysis, even grading15Leverage

1st leverage the power of the computer2nd leverage your own work/codeHA:75 coded, etc.Thus Imagine Using Random Number GenerationImagine having nearly an unlimited supply of applied statistical problems for each problem type to use.

Imagine the freed up time from making up numbers and solving each problem individually.

Imagine the ability to focus on the problem types, scenarios accompanying the numbers.

R, Sweave, and LaTeXUsing R, Sweave an R function, and LaTeX one can create PDF files with tons of examples Why: R, Sweave, and LaTeXR, Sweave, and LaTeX are all free of charge.

Many people already know R and LaTeX, for those people learning the R function Sweave will not be difficult.Those with a lot of lecture notes in LaTeX this can directly fit into your existing notes.

R has a ton of advanced statistical functions already built in.

For teaching advanced statistics and wanting to use random number generation this is one of the easiest platform to use.Much easier than C++, JAVA, etc. Something to consider if you are coding things yourselfR, Sweave, and LaTeXCombining R, Sweave, and LaTeX one can create an almost unlimited number examples, in terms of numbers.

Using the package Sweave one can create a PDF file directly from within R.A version of LaTeX must also be installed.Example Sweave Code Matrix Inverse==library(lattice); library(xtable)## DATA GENERATIONy2