The CASE project: Case-based Approaches to Statistics Education
Background
In March 2013 I was awarded a grant from the University Learning, Teaching and Student Experience Committee (ULTSEC) to investigate the use of case-based learning and teaching in Statistics service courses. The aim of the project is to promote a deeper understanding of core ideas in Mathematics and Statistics in a stage 1 course for Accounting & Finance students - by teaching through real-life, interesting, relevant case study material. Case-based learning involves group work and collaboration, discussion and participation in class, report-writing, and student-centred assessment and feedback.
If you're interested, feel free to look through the full details of my grant proposal.
Slides from an introductory talk on this project are also available.
Student involvement
The project has involved students from the outset:- A subset of students from the 2012/13 ACC1012 module: Jafar Aliewi, Ben Hair, Sophie Meeson, Cenqian Zhou, Junxi Shao, Loucas Louca, Andrea de-Jesus, Man Isha Kaur, Jess Wilkinson, Amanda Leathart
- Summer undergraduate interns: Man Isha Kaur (Stage 1 Accounting & Finance), Jack Aiston (Stage 4 Mathematics)
- Summer postgraduate interns: Jamie Owen (summer revision material), Keith Newman (web design, case studies)
- Undergraduate tutors: Anthony Murphy, Joe Matthews, Rosie Mellors, David Robertson, Suzanne Menice, Jack Aiston, Man Isha Kaur
- Postgraduate demonstrators: Keith Newman, Jamie Owen, Stacey Aston, Ged Cowburn, Rute Vieira
Materials
Various resources have been developed for the CASE project. Most of these can be found on my ACC1012/1013 teaching page; some of the main documents can be found here.
Case study handouts
- The Beckham effect: Football shirt sales at Paris Saint-Germain, with model report
- The price is right: How much should the new iPhone cost?
- Drinking to good health: Alcohol tax in Thailand
- Addicted to Facebook: Usage of social networking sites
- How effective are adverts?
- Dissecting night club profits: Pacha versus Green Valley
Student evaluation questionnaire
Postgrad material for running case study tutorials
Summer revision material
Case studies in other courses
Case material has been trialled in other courses, including MAS2317: Introduction to Bayesian Statistics and MAS8306: Topics in Statistics (Environmental Extremes); see my teaching page for these courses for more information.
Papers
Fawcett, L. (2017). The CASE project: evaluation of case-based approaches to learning and teaching in Statistics service courses. Journal of Statistics Education, 25(2), pp. 79-89.