INNOVATIVE APPROACHES IN MAKING THE TEACHING OF STATISTICS TO BUSINESS STUDENTS IN POLYTECHNICS MORE EFFECTIVE (Published)
The statistics syllabus meant for the business students in Tertiary institutions cannot be presented in the same manner as it is presented to purely statistics students; neither can it be taught as an isolated course. It should be structured in such a way that it will fit into the broad objectives of the entire business curriculum. If the syllabus does not fit into the main objective of the business curriculum, it is likely to become unattractive to them. The processing of statistical information by students is done in various ways; the pedagogy of transmitting statistical information to students also varies considerably. There is therefore the need for a balance between these two ends. This study adopted the content and document analysis approach to present summary of innovative methods that have been tried in some Tertiary schools and had yielded results to facilitate the trade-off that should exist between learning behaviors of students and teaching methods of lecturers. As of first importance, each lecturer should conduct a need assessment of the learning styles of the business students and implement the results of the findings. There need to be collaboration between industries and the institution to the effect that real-life data on business situations would be collected and used as examples in classrooms. The method of presentation of the lessons should also be varied to suit the various learning needs of the students: peer tutoring, group work, field trips and study, oral presentation of reports, role plays, simulations and use of spreadsheet. Various assessment procedures should be adopted to include; project assignments, oral presentations, interpretation of business situations and some computations. Most importantly, the lecturer should present himself as a real person to the student with the view of creating a conducive atmosphere suitable for learning. These techniques have been validated through carefully documented and repeatable researches and therefore there is no doubt about their usefulness and workability. When there exist gaps between learning behaviors of students and the teaching styles of the lecturer, the students become bored and not attentive in class, they perform poorly in examinations, get discouraged, and in some cases drop out of school. If the trade-off is achieved, all students will be taught partly in their preferred learning styles, which lead to an increased comfort level and willingness to learn
Keywords: Teaching Methods, business statistics, innovative methods, learning behaviors