ICOTS8: Scientific Programme: Paper 9G2

This paper is from Session 9G: Effective online educational materials

Full topic list

which comes under Topic 9: Technology in statistics education

(Thursday 15th, 11:00-12:30)

In search of the “perfect” blend between an instructor and an online course for teaching introductory statistics

Presenter

Candace Thille (Carnegie Mellon University, United States)

Co-authors

Marsha Lovette (Carnegie Mellon University, United States)
Oded Meyer (Carnegie Mellon University, United States)

Abstract

As part of the Open Learning Initiative (OLI) project, Carnegie Mellon University was funded to develop a web-based introductory statistics course, openly and freely available to individual learners online and designed so that students can learn effectively without an instructor. In addition, the course is often used by instructors in the hybrid form, to support and complement face-to-face classroom instruction. This paper documents two studies where we investigated the OLI-statistics courses’ effectiveness in the hybrid instructional model. We describe the design, results and limitations of the studies and discuss the implication of the results for finding the “perfect” blend between an instructor and an online course for teaching introductory statistics.