Quality and Relevance in the First Statistics Course

Abstract

When Sir David Cox was asked what advice he would offer the head of a new statistics department, he said (Cox, 2004), ''first the importance of aiming to make the first course in statistics that students receive of especially high quality and relevance.'' This paper suggests some aspects of quality and relevance in a first course for general students. One of its themes is that statisticians collectively fail to give the first university course the attention and resources that its importance warrants.