Issue Home Volume 11: Issue 4

Integrating Jesuit Education in Applied Statistics
Hisako Matsuo, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Research Methodology

A major mission statement of Jesuit education is “educating the whole person, including mind, body, heart, and spirit.” I try to integrate in my teaching aspects of social justice, diversity, and ethical issues. For example, as an introduction to a logistic regression analysis, I demonstrate how defendant’s race, victim’s race, and death penalty intertwined with each other, creating injustice, using a classic study conducted by Padelet (1981). After unfolding social injustice through statistical analysis, I pose a question to the students whether or not such injustice still prevails in American society. Another example is that I have students test what variables have impact on “whether or not people favor allowing an incurable patient to die.” After conducting the analysis, we have a discussion on the related topic. This method of teaching is based upon my own belief that disseminating statistical knowledge alone is not enough: It is important to provide my students opportunities to think about how to use their knowledge and skills as global citizens to serve others.

Another aspect of Jesuit education, which might not be recognized as much as it should be, is Ratio Studiorum, meaning Method of Study in Latin. I had the opportunity to participate in 16-week long seminar on Ratio Studiorum when I joined Saint Louis University late 1990’s. According to Ratio Studiorum, there is a logical order of method of studying subjects, which is intended to achieve the most efficient and effective learning. Although many of us might think that studying subjects in Humanities is different from studying subjects in Natural Science, there is a parallel between this philosophical method of Jesuit education and a pedagogical approach in Natural Science, including mathematics and statistics. In order to provide statistical knowledge and skills most effectively, I always administer a diagnostic quiz in the beginning of the semester in order to make sure that students in the class possess knowledge necessary to learn new material in the course. This is also to find out the level of students’ knowledge and the areas which I have to complement in the first few weeks of the course so that I can put all the students on the same plane.

As the Department of Research Methodology dissolves, I appreciate the opportunity to share my ideas about how I integrate Jesuit education in teaching applied statistics. I will continue to teach applied statistics in my new home department and hope that my ideas provide opportunities for other faculty to integrate SLU’s unique tradition as we strive to become a premier university in the US.

Padelet, M. (1981). Racial Characteristics and the Imposition of the Death Penalty. American Sociological Review, 46:918-928.

Last updated 04.28.09