A Thousand Projects: Behind the scenes with student projects in statistics and statistical modelling

Colleagues in statistics and the “serviced” disciplines, particularly engineering, often ask about aspects such as the types of contexts students choose, how do I “guide” their choices, analysis and reporting, and how to assess such individual projects in large classes. These types of questions are not easy to answer in a formal paper in the way colleagues want, so it was suggested that MSOR Connections could be a suitable medium for more anecdotal and informal comments. The original objectives were to provide hands-on data investigations for mainstream students, in contexts of their choice, from the conception, planning, collecting to exploring phases, and to integrate development of communication skills within mathematics degrees from the moment the students came to us. We had made a deliberate decision to integrate such skills within mathematics and statistics subjects rather than be vulnerable to separate “communication” subjects…