1. 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

2. 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)

3. Statistics disconnected
Substantive Social Science
Stats
Training

4. 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’

5. Making the statistics relevant
Substantive Sociology
Stats
Training

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

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

8. 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

10. 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

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

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

14. Project briefs… essential and desirable skills

15. 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

16. Does it work? Evaluation

17. Project Outputs - required
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

18. Additional outputs
Reports and blog posts

19. 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), <a href=" Information]</a>
News articles
Nathaniel Lusty

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

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

22. 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’?!)

23. 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?

24. 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)

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

26. Contact details University of Manchester Q-Step Centre
Jackie Carter: co-director (Internship lead) E:
S: dr_jackiecarter
Mark Brown: co-director