Assessing deep knowledge of statistical concepts

Assessing deep knowledge of statistical concepts

Grant:
Investigating Student Learning Grant (ISL)
Academic Year:
2011 - 2012 (June 1, 2011 through May 31, 2012)
Funding Requested:
$4,000.00
Project Dates:
-
Applicant(s):
gonzo
seifert
Overview of the Project:
This proposal examines a new approach to teaching graduate-level statistics that focuses on the intuitive understanding of statistical concepts. The research project will focus on measurable effects of instructional methods, including the ability of students to transfer their understanding to new statistical concepts. The direct application will be to graduate-level statistics courses for students across the social sciences. Extensions are possible to undergraduate statistics and to other courses involving mathematics and mathematical modeling in other sciences. The study involved examination of a new curriculum based on visualization tools that illustrate statistical concepts. In addition, a survey was conducted for students to evaluate the visualization methods and their learning process.
Final Report Fields
Project Objectives:
The main objective of the project was to examine the learning outcomes of a new set of visual demonstrations developed for teaching graduate-level statistics to social science students.
Project Achievements:
The project used a one on one instruction method to examine the learning with the visualization tools developed for the course as well as an evaluation survey. There was one key finding: students learned from and liked the visualization demos that were interactive. The main drawback listed by several students was that not all the visualization demos were interactive (about a third of demos in the set were interactive, merely because limitation on programming funds put constraints on the sophistication of most of the demos).The key impact has been to emphasize the use of interactive demonstrations where students can manipulate variables and see their effects. It appears that deeper learning occurs and students appreciate the experience, even though in some cases the interactive demos take more time than say reading a wikipedia page on the topic.
Continuation:
no
Dissemination:
The curriculum that was evaluated is available for other faculty to use and other faculty are already using the lecture notes, the demonstrations and the materials. The key finding of the research project, that interactive visualization demos are important both for learning and student engagement, has been shared with other faculty who teach these courses.
Advice to your Colleagues:
Like with any research project it took more work than originally anticipated. As we learned more about the research problem, we simultaneously realized how little we know about the problem.
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