Environment Matters: Institution and Course Characteristics and Pedagogy
Abstract
A new survey, E-SOMAS (Environmental Survey of Motivational Attitudes towards Statistics), is a part of a family of instruments, that will measure environmental characteristics related to affective constructs in statistics education. These instruments will include student and instructor surveys (S-SOMAS and I-SOMAS, respectively). Our environmental model has two factors with three elements in each. The two factors are split by the instructor’s locus of control. The first factor, institutional and course characteristics, while influenced by the instructor, is not fully within the instructor’s control and any type of control will vary between instructors. Factor 1’s elements are (a) institutional characteristics, (b) course characteristics, and (c) learning environment. Our link between I-SOMAS and E-SOMAS is the second factor, enacted classroom behaviors, which consists of (d) general pedagogy practices, (e) statistics-specific pedagogy practices and (f) teacher-student relations. Readers will be encouraged to comment, verify, and suggest variables which we will document.
