Teaching Introductory Business Statistics Using the DCOVA Framework

Abstract

Introductory business statistics students often receive little guidance on how to apply the methods they learn to further business objectives they may one day face. And those students may fail to see the continuity among the topics taught in an introductory course if they learn those methods outside a context that provides a unifying framework. The DCOVA problem‐solving framework that presents discrete steps to define, collect, organize, visualize, and analyze data addresses these concerns while helping to enhance the perceived value of taking statistics courses.

Examining Undergraduate Students’ Attitudes toward Business Statistics in the United States and China

“…Many studies have documented students' difficulties with statistical concepts and misconceptions in reasoning about probabilities, sampling distributions, and inference (e.g., delMas, Garfield, Ooms, & Chance, 2007;Sotos, Vanhoof, Van den Noortgate, & Onghena, 2007). Other research provides recommendations for course-related improvements (e.g., Burch, Burch, & Heller, 2015;Chance, Wong, & Tintle, 2016;Garfield, Le, Zieffler, & Ben-Zvi, 2015;Levine & Stephan, 2011), and resources for curricula models, instruction, and assessment of statistical knowledge (e.g., Tishkovskaya & Lancaster, 2012). The literature also provides a rich variety of activities, simulations, and cases aimed at fostering student engagement in statistics classes (e.g., Dinov, Christou, & Sanchez, 2008;Kottemann & Salimian, 2008;Van der Rhee, 2010).…”

Business Analytics Curriculum for Undergraduate Majors

“…For example, the Goizueta Business School at Emory University uses data from the Atlanta Falcons in their business statistics course; students are asked at the beginning of the course to describe the typical season ticket holder, which then leads to students asking questions about statistical methods. Levine and Stephan (2011) advocate using a problem-solving framework, define, collect, organize, visualize, analyze (DCOVA), to teach statistics. This framework helps students connect the different statistical techniques and provides continuity.…”

Using Excel for White's Test—An Important Technique for Evaluating the Equality of Variance Assumption and Model Specification in a Regression Analysis

“…Appropriate to this teaching brief, four decades have passed since Anscombe (1973) demonstrated it was absolutely essential to construct scatter plots and residual plots to go beyond the basic number crunching when developing a simple linear regression model and its summary statistics. Recently, Levine, and Stephan (2011) suggested a general, five-step DCOVA approach to statistical problem solving (with V for "Visualize") with the aim of enhancing data analysis and, as mentioned earlier, the Berenson, et al (2012) text is one of many that promotes the importance of graphic residual analysis in regression modeling. Recently, Levine, and Stephan (2011) suggested a general, five-step DCOVA approach to statistical problem solving (with V for "Visualize") with the aim of enhancing data analysis and, as mentioned earlier, the Berenson, et al (2012) text is one of many that promotes the importance of graphic residual analysis in regression modeling.…”

“…Over three decades have elapsed since Joiner (1981) stressed the importance of a graphic residual analysis to assist in the discovery of possible lurking variables missing from a regression model. Recently, Levine, and Stephan (2011) suggested a general, five-step DCOVA approach to statistical problem solving (with V for "Visualize") with the aim of enhancing data analysis and, as mentioned earlier, the Berenson, et al (2012) text is one of many that promotes the importance of graphic residual analysis in regression modeling. Overall, however, no business statistics textbook puts greater emphasis on visual approaches toward data analysis in general and regression modeling in particular than that of Stine and Foster (2011), which continually reminds readers to plot their data.…”