Introduction

Introductory statistics is taught in high schools and is part of many college degree requirements. Students may see the class as a wall inhibiting their progress toward their degree rather than an opportunity to gain a new skill for personal learning and career preparation. When students memorize algorithms to pass the course and leave their views of the significance and application of statistics unchanged, many of the main objectives of the course have been missed.

Using history to engage students can help within the realm of mathematics. The benefits of including history could generalize to statistics. History can be used, both in structuring the course as well as in the use of historical biographies and examples within already structured lessons.

Math and statistics teachers often hear the question, When am I ever going to use this?. Since instructors cannot perfectly predict a student's career path and every problem they may ever encounter, it is often difficult to answer this question. However, the related question, When could this ever be useful? can be answered by discussing the development of statistics. Most statistical topics arose out of a need to analyze data in a different way than those available at the time. This means that understanding the history of an idea provides an example of when each topic would be useful to understand.

Research on the effects of using history to teach math and statistics is discussed on the next page, but beyond quantitative research, common learning theories support using the history of statistics in teaching. One major idea of many common learning theories, such as the cognitive theory, is that learning is achieved when new content is connected to prior knowledge. Many students don't have extensive prior experience with statistical procedures, but they can connect with historical context that they have learned in other classes or through statisticians' personal life experiences. Many of those who contributed to the development of statistics would not have considered themselves statisticians. They had other professions or began their career in different fields. When students recognize the lasting influence of ordinary people, they can see themselves performing well in statistics, irrespective of if they would consider themselves statisticians. This, in turn, inspires a willingness to try and to persevere.

This website contains historical information relevant to the content of an introductory statistics course. It includes the histories of both statistical topics and biographical information of major contributors. The next page discusses the limited research that has been done on the effects of using the history of statistics to teach and the more extensive research in using the history of mathematics in teaching. Ideas for how to use the history of statistics in a course are also included. The historical content that follows is organized into five sections: statistical topics, famous probability problems, probabilists, early data analyzers, and modern statisticians. Those who read use this website and strategically incorporate elements of the content in their own teaching are likely to enhance student engagement and understanding in their introductory statistics courses.

See the video below for a brief overview of the history of statistics.