Douglas Whitaker

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https://hdl.handle.net/10587/2114
Dr. Douglas Whitaker is an Assistant Professor in Mount Saint Vincent University's Mathematics department. Dr. Whitaker's research focuses on educational practices in teaching statistics, including teaching models, assessments, and measures.

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Browsing Douglas Whitaker by Author "Bond, Marjorie"

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    Challenges to using and interpreting the SATS-36 instrument: Do you like statistics? Do your students like statistics? How do you know?
    (2019-05) Whitaker, Douglas; Unfried, Alana; Bond, Marjorie
    The Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics (SATS-36; Schau, 2003) is the most widely-used instrument for measuring attitude-related constructs in statistics education (e.g. Nolan, Beran, & Hecker, 2012). However, the SATS-36 is only an update to the earlier SATS-28 instrument (Schau, 1992), and in the decades since the original release, advancements in statistics education research have resulted in numerous challenges to the use of the SATS family of instruments. This poster will describe some of the challenges facing users of the SATS instruments. While some challenges have been previously discussed in the literature (e.g. research based on factor analysis and construct alignment (Cashin & Elmore, 2005; Vanhoof et al., 2011)), other challenges have not been documented thoroughly before (e.g. problems with the Effort construct and issues with alignment to the theoretical framework). This poster will describe challenges and discuss how these may impact interpretations of research and what ways they might be addressed. Additionally, a clear description of these challenges may help teachers using the SATS instruments to learn more about their students make more appropriate interpretations of the results. One way of addressing these challenges - the development of a new family of instruments for measuring students’ and instructors’ attitudes toward statistics - will also be discussed.
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    Design and validation arguments for the Student Survey of Motivational Attitudes toward Statistics (S-SOMAS) instrument
    (Routledge, 2019) Whitaker, Douglas; Unfried, Alana; Bond, Marjorie
    This chapter describes the development plan for a new survey designed to measure students’ attitudes toward statistics aligned with expectancy value theory, the S-SOMAS. Included in this description are the context and motivation for developing a new instrument, a brief overview of the theoretical framework, and the validity evidence to be collected to support the intended uses of the S-SOMAS. The S-SOMAS is currently in development and pilot data have been collected; as such, this chapter includes both planned and enacted elements of instrument development. This chapter also provides readers with an illustration about the early stages of validation work and some choices that instrument developers may encounter.
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    Environment matters: Institution, course and pedagogy
    (2019-05) Bond, Marjorie; Batakci, Leyla; Bolon, Wendine; Whitaker, Douglas
    A new survey, E-SOMAS (Environmental Survey of Motivational Attitudes towards Statistics), is a part of a family of instruments, that will measure environmental characteristics related to affective constructs in statistics education. These instruments will include student and instructor surveys (S-SOMAS and I-SOMAS, respectively). Our environmental model has two factors with three elements in each. The two factors are split by the instructor’s locus of control. The first factor, institutional and course characteristics, while influenced by the instructor, is not fully within the instructor’s control and any type of control will vary between instructors. Factor 1’s elements are (a) institutional characteristics, (b) course characteristics, and (c) learning environment. Our link between I-SOMAS and E-SOMAS is the second factor, enacted classroom behaviors, which consists of (d) general pedagogy practices, (e) statistics-specific pedagogy practices and (f) teacher-student relations. Readers will be encouraged to comment, verify, and suggest variables which we will document.