Examining the Relationship between Math Self‐Efficacy and Statistics Motivation in the Introductory Business Statistics Course: Self‐Compassion as a Mediator

Because business statistics students often experience a lack of statistical motivation, business educators need to understand the factors that influence students’ motivation levels in undergraduate‐level business statistics courses. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of math self‐efficacy and self‐compassion on students’ motivation levels and the gender differences among the main variables. The regression results showed that math self‐efficacy was a positive predictor of statistics motivation. Self‐compassion was also found to be a partial mediator of the relationship between math self‐efficacy and statistics motivation. Gender differences were also found in business students’ math self‐efficacy, self‐compassion, and statistics motivation.     

Supporting Student Learning through Instructional Videos in Business Statistics

While statistics is an essential topic for business students, many students experience barriers to successful learning due to anxiety, motivation, or difficulty with quantitative understanding. This research examines the use of online videos with an effort to explore the relationship between student characteristics, video usage, and course performance measures. In addition, the study examines student perceptions of the supplemental resources in an effort to examine the efficacy related to student learning and performance. This study seeks to confirm previous research regarding the benefit of supplemental video resources and extend the knowledge base by understanding the impact for various types of students (e.g., level of course, level of previous academic performance, etc.). The study found that the use of the video resources varies based on students’ previous math performance and the difficulty of the material. Student ratings indicate that the videos were helpful in learning the content and that they provided an important resource when students needed additional tools to master the material. Analysis of the results provides implications for understanding how different students use online videos and offers recommendations for educators and researchers about how to enhance student success in difficult statistics coursework.     

Examining Undergraduate Students’ Attitudes toward Business Statistics in the United States and China

The rapid growth of analytics is bringing more attention to quantitative core curriculum requirements in undergraduate business programs. Statistical knowledge and skills are unequivocally recognized as essential cornerstone of business analytics. Furthermore, educational research has shown that academic performance in statistics classes is related to the attitudes that students bring to the course. This article assesses the reliability and validity of the Survey of Attitudes toward Statistics (SATS) in measuring noncognitive dimensions of attitudes among undergraduate business students. Sample data from U.S. and Chinese introductory business statistics classes were collected and analyzed to learn more about this aspect of student engagement across business schools located in countries with substantially different levels of success in international mathematics achievement testing, as well as differing cultural and educational practices. Results show that the six‐factor model structure of the SATS provides a good fit in both populations, with students entering business statistics holding only slightly positive attitudes toward the subject. Significant distinctions between four of the six attitude components were identified. Implications of measuring and improving these attitudes are discussed. Business statistics instructors are encouraged to use the survey as a standardized instrument to measure effects of interventions and make evidence‐based pedagogical decisions.     

高职新生商务英语学习现状调查

以问卷调查的形式,通过描述性统计和定量分析,对高职商务英语专业新生学习状况进行了调查研究。调查内容主要包括受试对象的学习目的和学习动机、最希望掌握的商务英语技能和商务英语学习的难点和受试对象所喜欢的学习方式等。基于学习动机和合作学习理论,分析研究了问卷结果,并对高职商务英语教学提出了一些建议。     

Why McNemar's Procedure Needs to be Included in the Business Statistics Curriculum

In business research situations it is often of interest to examine the differences in the responses in repeated measurements of the same subjects or from among matched or paired subjects. A simple and useful procedure for comparing differences between proportions in two related samples was devised by McNemar (1947) nearly 60 years ago. Although the technique has enjoyed widespread usage in both behavioral and medical research, it has unfortunately not received proper attention in marketing, advertising, consumer research, public relations, operations management, or organizational behavior endeavors—disciplines wherein it is particularly desirable to evaluate the significance of changes in attitudes, opinions, or beliefs regarding some campaign or strategy. Perhaps the major reason for this obscurity is simply a general lack of awareness as to its value and practical power. The McNemar test is generally not currently being taught to business statistics students. It is the purpose of this article to demonstrate the usefulness and applicability of the McNemar procedure to these aforementioned disciplines so that it may be more appropriately employed as an important confirmatory data analysis tool within the basic business statistics curriculum.     

《统计学》课程教与学探讨

对经济与管理两大学科的学生来说,统计学是一门重要而又相对难学的课程。经过本人长期的摸索和教学实践,真正认识到教与学是相互的。本文分别从教师如何开展统计学的教学,学生如何搞好统计学的学习两方面进行探讨,期望能推动统计学的教学和研究。     

Teaching Introductory Business Statistics Using the DCOVA Framework

Introductory business statistics students often receive little guidance on how to apply the methods they learn to further business objectives they may one day face. And those students may fail to see the continuity among the topics taught in an introductory course if they learn those methods outside a context that provides a unifying framework. The DCOVA problem‐solving framework that presents discrete steps to define, collect, organize, visualize, and analyze data addresses these concerns while helping to enhance the perceived value of taking statistics courses.     

制约我国大学生创业的因素及对策——以高职院校为例

近年来我国高校毕业生就业形势十分严峻,如何解决大学生的就业问题,鼓励大学生创业,以创业带动就业,是当前解决大学生就业难问题的重要动力,对我国经济发展和社会稳定也具有积极的意义。本文以高职院校为视角,对大学生成功创业造成困扰的因素进行分析,并提出了一些促进大学生创业的对策。     

Perceived Role of Multimedia Instructional Materials on Multicriteria Technology and Engineering Decisions*

Studies have shown that it is difficult for people to deal with multicriteria decision‐making situations. Information technology tools such as decision‐support systems and expert systems have been developed in order to help them in such situations. Another tool that has been identified as helping managers understand complex engineering decision‐making situations is multimedia instructional materials. This research investigates the perceptions of business versus engineering students on improvement of their higher‐level cognitive skills when they participated in a multimedia‐based case study that used an expert system to model a complex engineering and technical problem. Two groups of students, business and engineering, participated in an experiment, where they analyzed the case study and made their recommendations. Two questionnaires measured their perceptions on the improvements achieved on different constructs. A structural equations model was developed in order to test the research hypotheses with business students being the experimental group and the engineering students as a control group. The major findings are no significant relationship between student major and higher‐order cognitive skills improvement, business students perceived more higher‐order skills improvement compared to engineering students, both groups perceived an improvement in learning‐driven factor, and business students valued learning‐driven factors more compared to engineering students. These results show that multimedia instructional materials were perceived to be very useful in making multicriteria engineering and technical decisions.     

基于衔接理论的商务英语阅读教学实证研究

本项研究以商务英语专业的学生为研究对象,以剑桥商务英语证书中级测试（BEC2）中的句子填空语篇为语料,进行了基于语篇衔接功能理论的语篇阅读技巧训练,旨在研究基于语篇衔接功能理论的阅读训练对学生成绩的影响。经过相关的定性定量分析研究,结果表明：（1）衔接机制对语篇建构有着不可替代的作用;（2）对语篇衔接功能的掌握可以帮助学生抓住文章结构、理解文章主题、以及句与句之间的逻辑关系;（3）对语篇衔接功能的掌握还可以帮助学生提高在句子填空项中的成绩。     

论网络背景下大学生网络创业能力的培养

开展创业教育、培养大学生创业能力是当今世界高等教育发展与改革的一个重要趋势,是大学生素质教育和创新教育的重要组成部分.通过对目前大学生网络创业的背景进行分析,论证了大学生网络创业的可行性,建设性地提出了大学生网络创业的途径.     

Online homework impact in undergraduate mathematics and business statistics courses

This evaluation examines the impact on student success rates related to changes in instructional programmes in undergraduate mathematics and statistics courses. Success for students taking courses with a computer-based homework component was compared with success of students who took the course in prior semesters without the computer-based component. Graphical and analytical tools are used to compare results. Results come from multiple semesters of each type of homework application, for both pre-calculus algebra and business statistics courses. Students whose performance is utilised in this study are undergraduate students taking introductory level college mathematics or business statistics courses, with mostly no prior instruction at this level. Comparing the success of the intervention group with the success of the baseline control group, findings support that the students using the computer-based homework instruction are just as successful as those using the traditional method of homework instruction. Utilising the online homework applications, provide several important advantages in today’s universities, including the reduced time for faculty grading, consistency of graded assignments across all sections of a course and most importantly, immediate feedback for students.     

大学生创业现状、难点及政府角色定位分析

近年来,针对大学生就业难问题,国家相继出台了一系列优惠政策,鼓励大学生自主创业,"以创业拉动就业"日益成为社会关注的焦点问题。应该说,大学生的创业环境在日趋改善。但是,大学生在创业过程中仍遇到了创业资金不足、社会经验欠缺等难点。扶持大学生创业,政府无疑要发挥重要的作用,但政府又该如何进行角色定位?而通过对大学生创业现状的了解和对难点的分析,将会对政府角色的定位有所裨益。     

关于大学商务英语课程设计的思考

大学商务英语课程设计与学生商务英语语言能力的培养息息相关。本文在分析大学商务英语课程教学目标的基础上,提出课程设计要基于需求分析,选用真实的教学材料与学习任务,以有连贯关系的商务情景为主线,重视过程学习,促进学生任务型操练。     

基于商务内容的商务英语阅读教学

商务英语阅读课程的教学目的除了要求学生了解英语语言知识外,还要求学生从阅读中获得相关的商务知识,即商务英语阅读课程必须要达到既培养语言能力又传授商务知识的双重目的。本文旨在分析商务英语阅读课堂中了解和掌握商务内容的必要性,以及如何进行基于商务内容的商务英语阅读教学,并提出了应该注意的事项,为商务英语阅读教学提供一种新模式。     

商务英语人才培养应以实际能力为核心——跨文化商务交际能力的培养视域

在《高等学校商务英语专业本科教学要求》的基础上,阐述了本科商务英语教学中培养学生跨文化商务交际能力的重要作用,认为培养学生跨文化商务交际能力在商务英语人才培养目标中占据核心地位;培养商务英语人才的最终目的也是让学生掌握实际的跨文化商务交际能力;最后试图设置一个比较合理的培养学生跨文化商务交际能力的课程群,以期能够对商务英语人才培养起到一定的积极作用。     

Learner motivation for MOOC registration and the role of MOOCs as a university ‘taster’

Despite the widespread adoption of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), no business model has emerged to make them sustainable from an institution standpoint. Using MOOCs as a marketing platform shows promise; but for this to succeed, it is necessary to understand the motivations of those who undertake them and to demonstrate how these same motivations can be better satisfied through enrolment in a fee-paying university course. We discuss the motivations for students as they progress through a MOOC and the factors that might lead to subsequent university enrolment. Our arguments are informed by MOOC statistics, the AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) marketing model, and the literature on adult education, technology adoption, goal seeking and consumer value. We argue that most students are led to MOOC enrolment through close alignment of the course topic and subject matter with their personal goals and through the establishment of an attractive value proposition. Progress in the MOOC depends on whether this goal alignment is maintained, and whether the value assumptions of students are met or exceeded. We predict that subsequent university enrolment will most likely occur when the MOOC experience is both satisfying and representative of the university experience, and where the increased time and financial commitment demanded by formal study is offset by the greater likelihood of attaining the focal goal. For this strategy to succeed, it will be necessary for the host institution to actively work with MOOC students to create an awareness of appropriate fee-paying courses and to promote the benefits of university study. This has implications for the way institutions market their courses to MOOC students.     

Teaching Statistics in US — An Alien's s-eye View

This article discusses the author's initial experience of teaching statistics in an American university, and the sort of way he thinks the subject should be taught. (Specifically, he looks at the assumption of normality, and indicates how conventional treatment in the area of hypothesis testing might be modified.) His comments primarily apply to elementary service courses, and particularly to those provided for business students.