Abstract Two of the most common suggestions for improving statistics education are using substantial open-ended projects and using real data sets for statistical analysis. Both recommendations have been incorporated successfully into an elementary statistics class for non-science majors by having the students design, implement, and analyze the data from their own statistical study over the course of a semester. Details of how this implementation was organized as well as a partial list of the students' projects are included. In response to these recommendations, the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at St. Joseph's University now teaches an elementary statistics course for liberal arts and social science majors as one of their two required mathematics courses. The course stresses data analysis and presentation, sampling, and experimental design.
Emphasis is on working with data rather than with formulas.
Almost all sections of the course use a spreadsheet or statistical package as an integral part of the course. In response to these suggestions, I decided to have my students do semester-long projects. The students were required to design and carry out a statistical study and then present their data with a brief analysis in a report. Students majoring in sociology and psychology take a research methods course in their major departments, in which they must complete a project. It seemed that requiring projects in an elementary statistics course would be just as valuable an experience, even if the projects were somewhat limited in scope.