We desired to improve student learning in our introductory, algebra-based statistical methods course. Marketing claims as well as anecdotal evidence suggested that electronic forms of educational material improve student learning. Some recent empirical evidence presented in the statistical literature uses both qualitative and quantitative data to evaluate computer-based learning aids. In order to contribute to evaluation of educational technology we designed an experiment to evaluate the use of ActivStats Multimedia Educational Software (on CD) and CyberStats Introduction to Statistics (on the web). Specifically, we assessed how the use of these two forms of educational material in the statistics laboratory portion of our course impacted student learning and attitudes. Implications of these results are discussed as well as lessons learned for designing future experiments.
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