Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn: Understanding statistics through work-placed learning Mark Brown and Jackie Carter Co-directors of University of Manchester Q-Step Centre Challenges and Innovations in Statistics Education Multiplier Conference of PROCIVICSTAT Szeged , Hungary 7-9 September 2017

numeracy crisis in the social sciences UK Quantitative Skills Gap “In higher education, almost all disciplines require quantitative capacity, but students are often ill-equipped to cope with those demands. Students are graduating with little confidence in using what skills they do have, having had little practice in applying them. Employers often lament the lack of quantitative skills in the workplace.” (‘Society Counts’ British Academy 2012)

Statistics disconnected Substantive Social Science Stats Training

Teaching Statistics to Social Science students: 2 related challenges ‘I thought I’d left statistics behind..’ The fear of number Getting the ‘relevance’ of data skills The answer to both is to engage students through meaningful applications. .. and to provide the opportunity to learn through ‘doing’

Making the statistics relevant Substantive Sociology Stats Training

Questioning mindsets Study then Work? Education Learning of skills Employment Application of skills

Applied learning: Q-Step internships 8 weeks long in the Summer of Second Year Living Wage

Q-Step National Programme www.nuffieldfoundation.org/q-step Funders: British Academy, Economic and Social Research Council and The Nuffield Foundation £20 million invested in 15 Q-Step Centres plus 3 affiliates Innovation and experimentation at undergraduate level to address the quantitative skills gap 10 year step-change

Manchester Q-Step Internships Huge Diversity of projects… in type of organisation, nature of problem/application and data, and ‘level’ of statistical skills required But all involve working with data in applied ‘real world’ applications Projects designed by the host organisations

Tying it in to the taught curriculum Taught Stats YEAR 1: foundations YEAR 2: core methods YEAR 3: specialism

Tying it in to the taught curriculum Taught Stats YEAR 1: foundations YEAR 2: core methods YEAR 3: specialism internships

Project briefs… essential and desirable skills

Managing Expectations Intern recruited to ‘do a job’ BUT not expected to be ‘job-ready’ Learning through application Facilitated through close support and mentoring from the host organsiation and a mentor from the Q-Step Academic team

Does it work? Evaluation

Project Outputs - required www.manchester.ac.uk/q-step/student-stories/ Celebrate rather than assess Outputs 3 reflective pieces A poster A student conference in November to celebrate the interns’ experiences with posters and ten 3 minute-presentations

Additional outputs Reports and blog posts

Additional outputs Academic papers News articles Nathaniel Lusty Black, K., Geary, R., French, R., Leefe, N., Mercer, C., Glasier, A., Macdowall, W., Gibson, L., Datta, J., Palmer, M., et al (2016). Trends in the use of emergency contraception in Britain: evidence from the second and third National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles. BJOG, 123(10), 1600-1607. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1471-0528.14131">[More Information]</a> News articles Nathaniel Lusty

Progression… stats options in final year of degree quantitative dissertations postgraduate specialisation to employment

What Lessons? 4 years of evaluation data Students: (before and after surveys, reflective pieces, interviews, pathways) Employers: surveys and interviews

The value of Internships For students: Applying (and Learning) skills in context of solving real problems proves a transformative experience.. in terms of motivation, understanding, confidence For us Feedback to curriculum content… Are we teaching the right skills? Pedagogic insights… the conditions for effective learning of stats and data skills (can we ‘bottle it’?!)

Why is workplace learning proving so effective? 3 common denominators Meaningful applications A problem solving approach Immersion and practice Can we recreate these in classroom teaching?

Some challenges Scaling up and sustainability The Internships remain a minority experience (50 out of 500) How do we extend the experience of workplace learning to all? Who pays? An undergraduate on placement costs approx. £2,800 for 8 weeks Our Internships are externally funded by Q-Step, a 6 year investment… but what happens when the funding runs out? Is it transferable to the classroom? To what extent can we replicate the experiential learning of the workplace setting? (timetable restrictions and large classes)

The voice of the intern.. www.manchester.ac.uk/q-step/student-stories/ Short films Posters

Contact details University of Manchester Q-Step Centre Jackie Carter: co-director (Internship lead) T: @JackieCarter E: jackie.carter@manchester.ac.uk S: dr_jackiecarter Mark Brown: co-director mark.brown@manchester.ac.uk