Students' Academic Difficulties in Learning a Statistics and Probability Course: The Instructors' View

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine students' academic difficulties in learning a statistics and probability course. The study sample consisted of 24 instructors (male and female) in the Humanities track in the Department of Basic Sciences in the Common First Year (CFY) at King Saud University (KSU).The results showed that students in the Humanities track faced several academic difficulties in learning statistics and probability and these difficulties were concentrated in the lessons of permutation, combination, probability and random variables. The results indicated that all the difficulties that instructors surveyed occurred at a high or very high level and that no single difficulty was located at the medium or lower levels. The results indicated that, from the point of view of the instructors, there were no statistically significant differences in the level of students' academic difficulties in learning statistics and probability related to the type of instructor (male or female), the instructor's experience in the CFY (less than five years, over or equal to five years), and specialization (statistics, mathematics).

Keywords: Students' Difficulties, Mathematics' Difficulties, Statistics and Probability.

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/10-9-05

Publication date:March 31^st 2019