Readiness of Final Semester Diploma in Statistics Students to Progress to the Next Level: A Trial Exit Test
Nor Rashidah Paujah @ Ismail1, Fadzilah Abdol Razak2, Elizabeth Arul3
1Nor Rashidah Paujah @ Ismail, Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Perak Branch, Tapah Campus, Tapah Road, Perak, Malaysia.
2Fadzilah Abdol Razak, Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Perak Branch, Tapah Campus, Tapah Road, Perak, Malaysia.
3Elizabeth Arul, Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Perak Branch, Tapah Campus, Tapah Road, Perak, Malaysia.
Manuscript received on 11 December 2019 | Revised Manuscript received on 23 December 2019 | Manuscript Published on 31 December 2019 | PP: 707-712 | Volume-8 Issue-12S2 October 2019 | Retrieval Number: L112310812S219/2019©BEIESP | DOI: 10.35940/ijitee.L1123.10812S219
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open-access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: Diploma in Statistics graduates choose to either to pursue further education or begin their careers as assistant statisticians. In either case, they are expected to have a strong of understanding in statistics and should be able to apply the knowledge and skill that they have learned when dealing with real data sets. This paper aims to assess the readiness of final semester Diploma in Statistics students to meet this expectation by analyzing their responses on a trial exit test. The test was given during the final (fifth) semester before graduation. The results showed that these students have the capability to compute the statistics values correctly. However, they still lack an understanding of the appropriate statistics that should be used as they failed to respond correctly to question on the application of statistics. They were not competent enough to understand the formula, and could not see how certain data could not appropriately be represented by certain statistics. For instance, it is not appropriate to use mean for a data set which contains outliers. This deficiency should be catered for and resolved by educators, so that the institution may provide skilled and knowledgeable statistics graduates who are able to meet the requirement set by educators and other stakeholders.
Keywords: Correlation and Regression, Descriptive Statistics, Measures of Central Tendency, Measures of Variation.
Scope of the Article: Regression and Prediction