With support from the UMBC Hrabowski Innovation Fund [Development and evaluation of a supplemental hands-on social statistics training materials using the open-source application – R Commander (Implementation and Research Grant)] — A multidisciplinary team led by Taka Yamashita (Sociology, Anthropology, and Public Health or SAPH), Shuyan Sun (Psychology), Christine Mair (SAPH), Fariha Khalid (Applied Sociology Masters Program), Samantha Fries (Applied Sociology Masters Program) and Rachel Crane (Applied Sociology Masters Program alumni) are developing ready-to-use supplemental social statistics training materials with the open-source statistics application, R Commander, and assessing students attitude towards statistics. Students’ negative attitude towards statistics (stats anxiety), and lack of statistical analytical/reasoning skills, often referred to as the “quantitative gap,” has been a serious concern in social science programs. This multi-year project started in fall 2019, and preliminary results will be available later in 2021.
One article has already been published: Use of the R Commander in the Introductory Social Statistics Course: A Case Study
The video below explains the project in more detail.