A university's introductory statistics course was redesigned to incorporate technology (including a website) and to implement a standards-based approach that would parallel the recent standards-based education mandate for the state's K-12 schools. The author collected some attitude (pre and post) and performance (post only) data from the "treatment" section and two "comparison (i.e., more traditional)" sections. There was a pattern of positive attitude towards the redesigned aspects of the course, including group work, lab and project emphasis, criterion-referenced assessment and examples from real-life. On the three problems given to the three sections at the end of the course, the only significant ANOVA (F(2,101) = 4.2, p = .0168) involved the treatment section scoring higher than the other sections. This occurred on a problem involving critical thinking (with a graphic from USA Today), an emphasis supported by the particular standards of the redesigned course.
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