Journal of Statistics Education

The Journal of Statistics Education (JSE) is a rigorously refereed electronic journal on teaching statistics. Its goal is to provide useful and interesting information, ideas, materials, software, and data sets to teachers of statistics at all levels. The intended audience includes both members of university statistics departments and faculty who teach statistics in other disciplines, such as mathematics, psychology, or sociology. The journal also publishes articles of interest to teachers of statistics at the primary or secondary level or in the workplace. It is available free of charge to any interested reader.

JSE has published articles on diverse topics, including assessment of students' understanding and attitudes, teaching inference and experimental design, distance learning, curriculum guidelines, cooperative learning, and using activities and projects. Regular features of JSE are “Data Sets and Stories” and “Teaching Bits: A Resource for Teachers of Statistics.” Articles in the “Data Sets and Stories” department describe interesting data sets and their pedagogical features. The data sets themselves may be downloaded for analysis or use with students. “Teaching Bits” summarizes articles from newspapers, magazines, and other publications that can be used as examples in the statistics classroom.

The idea of establishing a journal on statistics education arose during a strategic planning effort in the Department of Statistics at North Carolina State University (NCSU) in 1991. We felt that a lack of publication outlets for work on teaching statistics made it difficult for statistics educators to exchange ideas and also discouraged statisticians from investing time in the scholarship of teaching. We were intrigued by the possibility of publishing innovative content— interactive teaching materials, dynamic graphics, video, or sound—by using an electronic medium. At a planning workshop with 22 participants held at NCSU in 1992, the decision was made to establish a refereed electronic journal on teaching statistics.

The table of contents of the inaugural issue of JSE was sent by e-mail to 403 subscribers in July 1993. The first issue contained plain-text articles that were accessible by e-mail or gopher. The technological capabilities of the journal increased rapidly; the second issue contained the first graphic, the third issue was distributed via the World Wide Web, and the fourth issue included a brief animation. JSE was supported initially by the Department of Statistics at NCSU and a grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, U.S. Department of Education, and later by a grant from the Exxon Education Foundation. In 1999, JSE became an official journal of the American Statistical Association—the association's first electronic journal and its first journal devoted to statistics education. The journal now resides on the Web site of the American Statistical Association and is published in HTML format.

The first three editors of JSE were E. Jacquelin Dietz (1993–2000), Thomas Short (2001–2003), and W. Robert Stephenson (2004–2006). An international editorial board sets policy and handles the review process. Articles that pass an initial screening by the editor are sent to a member of the editorial board, who in turn sends the article to two additional reviewers. Refereeing is double blind. Refereeing criteria include quality of exposition, originality or novelty, and usefulness to teachers of statistics.

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