First, let me apologize for my previous post. I read this post while frustrated with my stats students! Lol
And, yes I do think a college freshman could self teach missing concepts, if they have been taught HOW to learn, which schools IMO usually don't teach, they teach primarily how to regurgitate rather than how to reason. So my students come to me as sophomores and often can't seem to see the logic in the statistical analyses I am teaching them. Since they can't see the logic it just looks like a mess of unrelated numbers to them (I assume). Since the textbook lays out the logic and the calculations and I reiterate it(ad nauseum) and they still don't comprehend the logic, I don't think they would be able to self teach.
But, my point regarding these open source courses is that I think they are great, but given the limited nature of many people's early education, I am not sure that they will be the "great equalizer" that one might think since not everyone will be able to take advantage of them.
