PhD students and others from all kinds of disciplines have the need for statistical learning and<br>understanding in common. For that reason, research courses in research method and biostatistics are<br>open for all kinds of participants, which mean that a large variety of applied topics are represented in<br>each course. The participants are commonly involved in the research process on different stages, some<br>of them having only a research topic, others have collected all data. Furthermore there is also a<br>variation in opinion about statistics, not regarding the need for statistics but the concerns about the<br>demand for mathematical skills etc. The heterogeneity of the participants' research fields and<br>experience in research is a real challenge in teaching but also in assessment of learning. However, a<br>common issue is that all participants are highly motivated as they need knowledge and understanding<br>in statistical thinking and literacy. The aim of this paper is to present the experiences of an<br>examination approach in which the participants get the opportunity to formulating their own<br>examination tasks based on own research problems and to solve them. This approach not only<br>improved the participants' learning and understanding, but good statistical practice was also<br>implemented the research group as a whole.
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