Christer Eldh

Tactical avoidance of statistics? – How students choose methods in writing theses in interdisciplinary higher education programmes

Taktiskt undvikande av statistik? -Hur studenter väljer metod i uppsatsarbete på en tvärvetenskapligt universitetsutbildning n

Summary, in English

Eldh discusses the challenges in teaching quantitative methods, in this case statistics, in interdisciplinary courses with mixed methods where both qualitative and quantitative methods are taught. Despite this, most students tend to choose to use qualitative methods in their thesis research and the author researches why this is the case. Literature suggests that students often find statistics courses to be daunting and that students may lack motivation. However, the author finds that in this case the challenges have more to do with the framing of the course in the programme, the instructions from supervisors to their students and the competency of teaching staff when it comes to methods other than the ones they themselves promote. The findings and discussion highlight the importance of collegial communication and mutual understanding.

• Author: Christer Eldh
• Editor: Johanna Bergqvist Rydén; Anne Jerneck; Jessika Luth Richter; Karin Steen
• Department/s: Department of Service Studies
• Publishing year: 2020-12-08
• Language: English
• Pages: 21-31
• Publication/Series: Interdisciplinary pedagogy in higher education : Proceedings from Lund University's Teaching and Learning Conference 2019
• Document type: Conference paper
• Publisher: Lund University
• Topic: Pedagogy
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISBN: 978-91-89213-40-1