Statistical Thinking in Computer-Based Learning Environments

The theme of technology is particularly important for statistics education because of the role of technology in changing views of statistical knowledge, pedagogy and learning. The interactive multimedia technology of today allows for the creation of powerful learning environments where the focus is on the process that produced the data and its associated variation and the statistical thinking required to solve the problem. However, despite this optimistic view, students' self‐regulation and intrinsic motivation seem to be key concepts for learning in complex interactive computer‐based learning environments. We conclude with observations of teachers and students working with applets. More of these evaluations should be published and/or made available to the statistical community so that both positive and negative teaching experiences can be shared.     

CPPD案例教学法应用效果的一项实验研究

CPPD是案例教学的一种新方法。基于一项教学实验,本文运用问卷调查和统计分析,考察其在管理案例教学中的实际效果。结果显示,CPPD案例教学法在激发学习兴趣、活跃课堂气氛、获取专业知识、提升沟通技能、增强知识运用能力和批判性思维能力方面较传统案例教学法更具优势,在增强学习信心与记忆案例内容方面则与传统案例教学法没有显著差异。CPPD案例教学法较传统案例教学法更有利于发挥案例教学的潜在优势。     

Virtual Environments and the Acceleration of Experiential Learning

Darius et al. (2007) and Nolan & Temple Lang (2007) give examples of virtual environments that can, for specific purposes, substitute for the real world. We are in the early stages of developments that could revolutionize statistics education by making it possible to capture efficiently important aspects of the thinking and practice of professional statisticians previously learned only from long years of experience. The ability of virtual environments to automate processes provides a potent weapon for tackling the tyranny that Time exercises over such modes of learning. We discuss the many new possibilities that are opened up by virtual environments together with cognitive and pedagogical imperatives to be addressed to ensure that environments actually do teach the lessons they were designed to teach. We echo Nolan and Temple Lang's call for the development of environments to be modular and open source. Taking the R‐project as a model, this can lead to a growing repository of building blocks that make the construction of future environments less costly, thus facilitating the realization of more and more ambitious conceptions.     

假设检验的启发式教学方法研究

假设检验是概率论与数理统计课程教学中的重点和难点。针对以往教学中出现的弊端,本文通过启发式教学方法,使学生在掌握原理的同时树立主动思维与统计思想。     

Governed Through Ghost Jurisdictions: Municipal Law,Inner Suburbs and Rooming Houses

This article examines the legal geography of municipal bylaws regulating rooming houses in the City of Toronto. Using a legal geography analysis of Toronto's rooming house licensing bylaw, I argue that this bylaw is a ghost jurisdiction that designates part of the city as illegal and has implications for governance of the inner suburbs. In so doing, I push the debate on legal geography forward by suggesting that we, as urban scholars, take the temporal seriously in our analysis of space. Drawing from semi‐structured interviews, archival data and participant observation, I analyse seemingly mundane legal mechanisms through the case study of suburban rooming houses. Overall, in this article I make three contributions. First, I demonstrate how a temporal analysis is important to legal geography inquiries of uneven regulation and spaces of poverty. Second, I suggest that studies of legal governance are integral for redefining suburban governance amidst socio‐economic decline in the inner suburbs. Third, I argue that studying urban legal mechanisms in the suburbs is essential for moving beyond downtown analytical frameworks and is needed to address how low‐income suburban tenants, a large majority of whom are racialized newcomers, are unevenly regulated and unfairly governed by local government.     

A Q-Analysis of Census Data: Intra-Household Income Allocation and School Attendance in Chiapas, Mexico

Q-analysis, introduced by a mathematician Ron Atkin, is a useful tool to explore social structures. I introduce essential concepts and techniques of q-analysis to show q-analysis’s potential ability to analyze and extract information from census data – the work that most researchers have done mainly with statistical methods. Using Mexican census and q-analysis, I examine whether children of female-headed household aged 15–19 were more likely to attend school than male-headed household children in Chiapas, Mexico in 2000. My findings are consistent with the large body of previous research, many of which were conducted with statistical methods: women’s control of income tends to results in a better welfare for their children, defined as children’s school attendance by the sex of heads of household in my study. I evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of a-analysis of census data. I conclude that while it has some weaknesses, q-analysis is a complimentary method to statistical methods for analysis of census data that may overcome some limitations that statistical methods often face such as an incapability of handling a small sample.     

Organizational Learning in Project‐Based Companies: A Process Thinking Approach

Although a traditional project model is clearly useful for laying out the patterns of relationships surrounding a project, it does not provide the temporally embedded accounts that enable us to understand how organizational learning takes place. The process thinking perspective offers a means to solving this problem. This article provides an analysis of how different processes interact dynamically in order to benefit project‐based companies' organizational learning. Two findings from this study are: (1) organizational learning is a dynamic concept that emphasizes the continually changing nature of a project‐based company and (2) sensemaking and negotiation of meaning are ongoing processes in project‐based companies.     

创新教学方法,促进启发式教学

启发式教学要求教师充分调动学生的主动性和积极性,使学生成为学习的主体,发展学生的思维,提高学生的能力。在教学实践中可以通过了解学生需要,激发学习兴趣;巧设疑问,创设问题情境;以学生为本,构建和谐的师生关系,营造良好的学习氛围;改革考核方式;积极利用现代化教学手段等方法来进行启发式教学。     

An Empirical Exploration of Decision-making Under Agency Controls and Stewardship Structure

abstract Two theories have emerged in the managerial control literature as to the best way for organizations to ensure that managers are acting in the firm's best interest: agency theory, which stresses controlling decision‐makers through monitoring and incentives aligned with organizational goals, and stewardship theory, which stresses that decision‐makers will act in the organization's best interest even in the absence of controls. Much of the research investigating the utility of these two positions is based on archival data where actual decision‐making can only be inferred. In this study, we utilize a laboratory methodology in order to determine if decision‐makers actually make different decisions when under the types of control (or lack thereof) suggested in these two theories. The results of this study show that individuals under agency controls invest more in alternatives that maximize profits of an organization than individuals under stewardship controls.     

Using R to teach econometrics

R, an open‐source programming environment for data analysis and graphics, has in only a decade grown to become a de‐facto standard for statistical analysis against which many popular commercial programs may be measured. The use of R for the teaching of econometric methods is appealing. It provides cutting‐edge statistical methods which are, by R's open‐source nature, available immediately. The software is stable, available at no cost, and exists for a number of platforms, including various flavours of Unix and Linux, Windows (9x/NT/2000), and the MacOS. Manuals are also available for download at no cost, and there is extensive on‐line information for the novice user. This review focuses on using R for teaching econometrics. Since R is an extremely powerful environment, this review should also be of interest to researchers. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

魔术在数据结构教学中的运用

数据结构是大学计算机相关专业的核心课程,但其内容抽象、理论性强、难于理解,传统教学方法按部就班地教学,往往会使学生感到厌倦无味。在实际教学中,笔者结合"魔术思想"来教学数据结构,通过分析揭密魔术来实现对课程知识的教学,提高学生学习兴趣和激发学习动机,获得了较好的效果。     

论数学教育中知识展开的层次性

素质教育中,数学学科的学习必须重视锻炼学生的思维能力,而在教与学的活动中突出知识过程展开的层次性,将会让教师的教与学生的学取得良好的效果。     

Evaluating asset‐pricing models using the Hansen–Jagannathan bound: a Monte Carlo investigation

We use recent statistical tests, based on a ‘distance’ between the model and the Hansen–Jagannathan bound, to compute the rejection rates of true models. For asset‐pricing models with time‐separable preferences, the finite‐sample distribution of the test statistic associated with the risk‐neutral case is extreme, in the sense that critical values based on this distribution deliver type I errors no larger than intended—regardless of risk aversion or the rate of time preference. We also show that these maximal‐type‐I‐error critical values are appropriate for both time and state non‐separable preferences and that they yield acceptably small type II error rates. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sudden Unintended Used‐Price Deceleration? The 2009–2010 Toyota Recalls

Using data from the vehicle resale market, I test consumer responsiveness to large‐scale product recalls that are caused by safety problems. The used‐vehicle prices of Toyotas are compared to the used‐vehicle prices of the other major domestic and foreign manufacturers. The results quantify the losses suffered by Toyota vehicle owners in secondary markets due to the 2009–2010 safety recalls of more than 9 million Toyota Motors vehicles. The treatment effect of a recall is measured using panel data with a difference‐in‐differences estimation approach that allows for time‐varying treatment effects and serial correlation. I find that this recall episode had negative effects in the resale market for automobiles that were quantitatively small (less than 2% of the vehicle’s resale value), statistically indistinguishable from zero, and short lived (did not persist beyond December 2009). A comparison with Audi’s recalls in the 1980s of vehicles with sudden unintended acceleration suggests that the extent to which a company’s reputation is established is more important than whether or not a company has a reputation for producing high‐quality products.     

试论行动导向型教学法在五年制高职专业课教学中的应用

行动导向型教学法强调学生是学习过程的中心,教师是学习过程的组织者与协调人;在教学中遵循"资讯、计划、决策、实施、检查、评估"这一完整的"行动"过程序列,注重教师与学生的互动,鼓励学生积极参与课堂教学的各个环节。这种教学方法有别于传统的课堂教学,非常适应五年制高职学生心理及生理的成长需求。因此,如何通过应用行动导向型教学法,使五年制高职学生摆脱曾经学习失败的阴影,经过五年卓有成效的学习,成为自信、自强的社会有用之才,是本文欲探讨的焦点问题。     

Firm Experience and Market Entry by Venture Capital Firms (1962–2004)

In this paper, we examine a firm's decision to enter new markets as related to the depth and breadth of its experience and the relative distance of those markets. We situate our discussion and analysis in the context of the venture capital (VC) industry, and examine whether and when US VC firms enter five high‐technology investment markets through first‐ or later‐round investments. This setting allows us to observe both the firms that chose to enter a new market and those that did not, and analyse the antecedents of these decisions. We find that VC firms overall are less likely to enter distant markets; those with broader experience are more likely to make first‐round entries. In addition, VC firms with deeper investment experience are more likely to make first‐round entries in proximate markets and less likely to enter distant markets and make later‐round entries. These results offer interesting implications for the literature on organizational learning and entrepreneurship.     

TACKLING FALSE POSITIVES IN BUSINESS RESEARCH: A STATISTICAL TOOLBOX WITH APPLICATIONS

Serious concerns have been raised that false positive findings are widespread in empirical research in business disciplines. This is largely because researchers almost exclusively adopt the ‘p‐value less than 0.05’ criterion for statistical significance; and they are often not fully aware of large‐sample biases which can potentially mislead their research outcomes. This paper proposes that a statistical toolbox (rather than a single hammer) be used in empirical research, which offers researchers a range of statistical instruments, including a range of alternatives to the p‐value criterion such as the Bayesian methods, optimal significance level, sample size selection, equivalence testing and exploratory data analyses. It is found that the positive results obtained under the p‐value criterion cannot stand, when the toolbox is applied to three notable studies in finance.     

Broad Cross‐License Negotiations

In many industries, broad cross‐license agreements are considered a useful method to obtain freedom to operate and to avoid patent litigation. In this paper, I study firm incentives to sign a broad cross‐license as well as the duration of broad cross‐license negotiations. I develop a model of bargaining with learning, which predicts that two firms will enter a broad cross‐license agreement only if their capital intensities are large enough. The model also predicts faster negotiations when firms have high capital intensities and when the frequency of future disputes is low. I confirm these predictions empirically using a novel data set on cross‐licensing and litigation in the US semiconductor industry.     

让计算机应用基础真正成为学习和使用的基础

在计算机应用基础教学中,教师精心选择教学素材,精心设计教学内容,精心设计问题,激发学生的学习兴趣,并且要强化资源利用,重视学生的个体差异,使他们提高独立学习和思考的能力,培养团队意识。