This study explored threshold concepts and areas of troublesome knowledge among students enrolled in a basic biostatistics course at the university level. The main area of troublesome knowledge among students was targeted by using technology to improve student learning. A total of 102 undergraduate students who responded to structured questionnaires were included in this study. The results suggest that threshold concepts regarding “statistics” and “random sample” need to be better understood. “Confidence interval” and “hypothesis testing” were the two most frequent troublesome areas among the participants. The pedagogical role of technology in teaching and learning statistics, and the mechanisms whereby technology may improve student learning were discussed.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education