The effectiveness of simulations for teaching statistical concepts was compared to the effectiveness of a textbook. The variable Medium (simulation versus textbook) and Question specificity (specific versus Non-specific), were manipulated factorially. The subjects consisted of 115 college students. The dependent variable was performance on problems requiring subjects to apply what they learned to ill defined everyday problems. Subjects trained by simulation performed significantly better than those trained with a textbook. subjects in the "specific" condition performed better than those in the "Non-specific" condition, although the difference did not reach conventional levels of significance. these results support the increasing use of simulation in education and training.
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