ENGAGING AND MOTIVATING STUDENTS WITH AUTHENTIC STATISTICAL PROJECTS IN A CAPSTONE UNIT Ayse Aysin Bilgin 1 , Glenn Newbery 2 , Peter Petocz 1 1 Macquarie University, Australia 2 University of Western Sydney, Australia ayse.bilgin@mq.edu.au Students preparing for professional statistical work can benefit from experience with real statistical problems presented by real clients and requiring them to engage with the complete problem-solving process without the usual cues of ‘textbook’ examples. We have used such an approach in a capstone unit in statistical consulting, asking students to write about their learning experiences and to reflect on the ways in which such consultations helped them (or not) to develop their professional statistical skills. A content analysis of students’ comments focusing on engagement and motivation confirmed that students had generally positive views of their experience and found the approach engaging and motivating. On this basis, we recommend utilising real problems from real clients as a means of including authentic practice in a professional statistics degree, with consequent benefits for students’ engagement and motivation. INTRODUCTION – A CAPSTONE STATISTICAL CONSULTING UNIT During the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers Conference, in Canberra in December 2014, the Chief Scientist of Australia, Prof Ian Chubb, related that when he was young, the mention of being a mathematician or loving mathematics left him alone in any in social situation! Mentioning a love of statistics would have created a similar effect, as statistics is associated with mathematics in many people’s minds. One of the authors experienced a similar scenario during her introductory talk to Bachelor of Social Science students, as she was encouraging them to choose a statistics major. When she asked “who loves statistics?”, only a single hand was raised from the groups of over 150 students, with most of the rest trying to look the other way. Statistics as a discipline does not usually generate high levels of engagement and motivation among students generally, nor even among students studying statistics. When we were designing our capstone unit for the statistics major (Bilgin et al., 2011), we aimed to give our students opportunity to confidently apply their statistical knowledge and skills to authentic professional problems. We created a curriculum where they could expand their communication skills, increase their confidence to continue learning, and develop their professional and personal identity as statisticians. Our previous investigations have shown that our students recognise these as key aspects of the unit (Bilgin & Petocz, 2013). Our students come from mixed mathematical backgrounds. The actuarial students are able mathematicians wishing to add a second major in statistics, while the science/business students are not so strong mathematically, but have more experience with applied statistics. Generally, none of them has had authentic experience of the messy nature of real statistics problems presented by real clients who may not always give clear descriptions of their research aims. Like all teachers, we aimed to engage this diverse group of students and motivate them to do their best in this statistical consulting unit; in this aim we used a variety of approaches. Firstly, we share our own experiences of statistical consulting with them, formally, as the topic of the first class, and then informally throughout the course. Secondly, we bring guests into our classes. Several times, guest researchers present real problems and ask the students for comments and advice in solving them; this allows students to practice clarifying a problem and explaining a solution. Other guests have statistical consulting experience, and they share this with the class, highlighting the ‘human’ aspects of consultancy. Students work in groups during the semester on larger consultancy projects, taking responsibility for the complete consultancy from start to finish (though lecturers are available for discussion if needed). The reports of these projects are used instead of examinations for final assessment. Such group project work in statistics has been shown to increase engagement (Sisto & Petocz, 2012). The curriculum is arranged to encourage students to develop their ‘soft skills’ and technical competence, and to use the support of their peers and lecturers to develop their expertise in the consulting process. IASE 2015 Satellite Paper – Refereed Bilgin, Newbery & Petocz In: M.A. Sorto (Ed.), Advances in statistics education: developments, experiences and assessments. Proceedings of the Satellite conference of the International Association for Statistical Education (IASE), July 2015, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ©2015 ISI/IASE iase-web.org/Conference_Proceedings.php