Abstract:

Teaching Statistics in engineering career is fundamental for learning the methods and tools to analyze data and obtain the underlying information they possess, and contributes to the generation of statistical thinking in the future engineer. Statistical thinking is the knowledge of systems, processes and their interconnections through the acquisition of data, observation of data’s variability, and the search for methods to reduce it. Observing and obtaining information provided by the processes and systems that we detect and recognize, solving the variability problems through the analysis of said information is the goal for the control and optimization of the environment.

The evolution of statistical thinking in students is an essential pillar to achieve the career incumbencies. However, Sometimes, Statistics is dictated in isolation from the core subjects of the career, vaguely related to engineering processes. For a connection with real situations, presentations are often made with the use of statistical packages that provide a large number of graphics.

In turn, the most complex topics of the subject are studied with simple examples that allow a manual construction of graphics, which contributes to learning by presenting the results in a legible and clear. However, the statistical graphs have certain characteristics in an image perspective, such as the schematization, show only spot views or sections in space and time, isolated or partial views of a set, and finally, views in 2D of something that has 3 or more dimensions.

The graphs of inference, errors, control, etc. can be difficult to understand by the students, who must imagine the situations, detect at what moment and in what plane arises the representation they are observing, and if they are one or several data sets. In addition, for current students, accustomed to the technological deployment in all canals, the vision of static graphics is poor, limited and boring. As a reference, there are animations of graphs of descriptive statistics, being attractive and clarifying.

The animation and simulation of complex topics such as inference, hypothesis testing, data analysis, statistical process control, etc., provides an instrument of understanding that goes beyond what the imagination can build, it will be a representation Valid, verified, showing correctly the concepts of a formal Statistics topic.

For animations creation, we use examples of data analysis of stochastic processes, their variability, presentation of multiple samples of a population, the relationship between several of these elements. The animation can also be interactive and focused on topics that students demand support, because of their level of complexity.

Learning whit these dynamic animations collaborates with the insertion in the mind of the students of the statistical thinking as the main axis on which the other specific knowledge of the career will be based. They are constructed based on real processes, which are simulated to obtain validated data from the model. Then the simulated data are used in the 3D animation of the most representative Statistics graphs, constituting a significant support for teaching. The animation is done to highlight the central points of each theme. The graphics are available on the web media available at the Rosario Regional School, and are public access.

Keywords:

Animation, simulation, statistics, analysis, stochastic processes, graphics, 3D.