Schedule-at-a-Glance
Wednesday December 7
10:00a -10:15a PST || 1:00p -1:15p EST
10:15a -11:15a PST || 1:15p - 2:15p EST
Keynote Address: Main Room
Upon Graduating, What Do You Want Your Students to Remember About Psychological Statistics?
Jess Hartnett Gannon University For the majority of your students, psychological statistics/introduction to statistics is the only statistics class your students will ever take. In a world where facts are becoming murkier and, statistical reasoning could truly improve democracy, do your students really benefit from solving the sum of squares by hand, or should they learn more applied lessons about statistical literacy? Dr. Hartnett has many opinions on this topic. She will share some of them with you, and she will also share some readily applied teaching examples and activities that serve all of our psychology majors and their statistical literacy.
Main Room
Welcome - PsychTerms Organizing Committee
11:20a - 11:40a PST 2:20p - 2:40p EST
Breakout Room A
Flipping Is Fun: A Modified Flip Can Increase Enjoyment When Teaching Statistics
Whitney Hansen Arizona State University The material we cover in Introduction to Statistics is critically important but uninteresting to many students, which can lead to problematic classroom behaviors. Furthermore, disengaged students can lead to instructor frustration and burn-out. One way to make the course more enjoyable for faculty and students is to flip the classroom. A recent meta-analysis by Farmus, Cribbie, & Rotondi (2020) demonstrates how effective the flipped classroom can be for statistics. I argue that it can also make the class more engaging and rewarding for students and instructors alike. I will detail a modified flip design that I have implemented successfully at a large public university. Strategies and low-cost suggestions for implementing such a model will be discussed.
Breakout Room B
Scaffolded Learning: Moving From Exposure to Mastery in Research Methods
Jennifer Goetz & Drew Morris Centre College In 2010, Centre College moved to an integrated style of teaching statistics and research methods across two semesters. We discuss the benefits and lessons learned in implementing an integrated methods and statistics course. This model has allowed us to scaffold research methods learning goals – moving from initial practice to mastery and production of research. This multi-semester sequence also allows for long-term goal setting, low-stakes assessment, and gradual skill building that is more equitable for diverse learners. In practice, narrowing student achievement gap and increasing subject interest. In this talk, we present our own scaffolded model for research methods skills across the two courses and invite discussion on equitable research pedagogy.
Breakout Room C
Getting It Right: Compliance, Challenges, and Successes in Writing Proposal Assignment Instructions
Leslie Martinez University of the Incarnate Word How can instructors write effective instructions that students will read and follow, without sacrificing rigor? This presentation will enumerate the challenges and successes encountered in the effort to write good instructions and explain the main factors accounted for when revising proposal assignments. The example assignment is a full research proposal. Special attention is given to the role of behavior modification principles, considerations regarding students’ motivations, and demonstration of the value in making learning objectives explicit. Audience contributions are welcome and will expand our discussion of this surprisingly complex challenge.
15-minute Break
11:55a - 12:15p PST || 2:55p - 3:15p EST
Breakout Room A
Passion-Driven Statistics
Lisa Dierker, Kristin Flaming, Jennifer Rose Wesleyan University This presentation will discuss the Passion-Driven Statistics Initiative, a project-based introductory curriculum that has been implemented as a statistics course, a research methods course, a data science course, a capstone experience, and a summer research boot camp with students from a wide variety of academic settings including liberal arts colleges, large state universities, regional colleges/universities, medical schools, and community colleges. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the curriculum engages students in authentic projects with large, real-world data sets from the very first day.
Breakout Room B
Low-Tech Gamification of a Statistics Course
Georjeanna Wilson-Doenges University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Gamification has grown in popularity in statistics courses as way to motivate students to learn this challenging material with significant positive outcomes. Often, though, integration of gamification can feel daunting for instructors with limited time, training, and resources. I developed a “low-tech” gamification of my introductory statistics course as a way to increase motivational affordances for students without over-burdening instructor workload. I created a system of extra credit called “Star Activities” which include short games, meme analyses, and other activities to motivate students to apply their learning in novel ways. I will discuss strategies for implementation including the use of emojis, the importance of “leveling-up”, and other lessons learned from five semesters of student feedback.
Breakout Room C
Can You Claim It? An Innovative Active Learning Approach to Introducing Research Methods in Large Enrollment Courses
Kosha Bramesfeld University of Toronto Four years ago, when I learned that I would be teaching research methods as a lecture course to upwards of 200-700 students per section, I panicked. How would I engage that many students at a time? In this presentation, I first discuss how I use media headlines to introduce key terms related to sampling, measurement, experimental design, and ethics. Then I discuss how I engage students in a multi-step online activity designed to help students find and collaboratively evaluate research claims in the media. The assignment allows students to explore their own interests, engage with one another, and test their understanding. A link to access the lecture slides, knowledge checks, and assignment instructions will be provided as part of the presentation.
12:20p - 12:40p PST || 3:20p - 3:40p EST
Breakout Room A
Integrating Open Source Data into Psychology Statistics Courses: Challenges and Opportunities
Hannah Osborn, Ruth Walker, Julie Madden, Kristen Black University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Historically it is common practice for statistics instructors to utilize curated data sets to efficiently demonstrate statistics concepts and analyses; however, students often have difficulty transferring those skills to real-world data. We will present our efforts to create a lab manual that includes open source datasets and examples from published research studies. We will share examples of the content from our lab manual, Applied Data Analysis in Psychology: Exploring Diversity with Statistics, as well as our complementary open education resources. Additionally, we will discuss the challenges we faced along the way as well as the opportunities for advanced learning presented through the utilization of these data sets. We will end by sharing preliminary findings regarding students’ experiences with this format.
Breakout Room B
Learning by Coding
Johnny Dubois University of Toronto Coding is an extremely desirable skill, both within and beyond academia. Tragically, coding is often either reserved for specialized courses or simply not taught at all. This technological absence is disappointing: students miss out on acquiring a key skill, and teachers fail to implement a critical tool for effective pedagogy. Specifically, coding includes several processes known to enhance pedagogical outcomes. First, coding is an extremely active task (requiring critical thinking and exploration), and second, students become deeply engaged by choosing personally relevant datasets and analyses. I propose teaching coding as a means of teaching course content. Here, I demonstrate a replication of published analyses using Rmarkdown, which I employed previously with undergraduate coding novices, in a small developmental psychology seminar.
Breakout Room C
Introducing Open Science in Introductory Statistics Courses
Amanda Mae Woodward University of Minnesota Twin Cities Undergraduate statistics courses are important for helping students become critical consumers of information. Beyond learning how to calculate and interpret statistics, these courses offer an opportunity to introduce students to open science practices that make data analysis more transparent and reproducible. In this talk, I will discuss how I have included assignments on preregistration and have incorporated R Studio into my course to facilitate students’ skill building and increase their knowledge of open science.
Teaching Round Tables (gather.town)
12:45p - 1:45p PST || 3:45p - 4:45p EST
Reinforcing Students' Understanding of Research Validity Through Meta-Cognition About Instructor Feedback
Sydney Y Wood, Oliver Xia, Victoria Cross University of California Davis We discuss our experience implementing an extra credit assignment aimed at promoting meta-cognition about instructor feedback given on students’ scientific writing. An Intro to Research Methods course at a large public university includes 5 unit exams each building on the previous exams’ topics (Research design and the Four Validities). Students’ knowledge is scaffolded as they answer virtually identical questions in each subsequent exam to evaluate a new research summary. We propose using cover letters(with meta-cognition instructions) to supplement written exam corrections to motivate students to engage with instructor feedback. We also present data on the quality of students' meta-cognition and corrected responses, demographics of those who opt-in vs opt-out of treatment, and impact on post-treatment scores on repeated questions.
Metaphors I Teach With: Using a Thought- Provoking Example From Metaphor Research to Teach Core Methods and Statistics Concepts
Kevin J. Holmes Reed College “Next Wednesday’s meeting has been moved forward two days. What day is the meeting now that it has been rescheduled?” Each time I pose this question in class, some students answer Monday and others answer Friday—and without fail, each group is astonished at the other group’s answer. I leverage students’ curiosity about these contrasting intuitions not only to explain how psychological research on metaphor can account for them, but also to teach core methods and statistics concepts: correlational vs. experimental designs, internal vs. external validity, generating theory-driven predictions, operationalizing constructs, and chi-square tests. The techniques I use may be effective because they invite students to compare relationally similar studies or concepts, promoting analogical learning and schema abstraction.
R you ready? Course Policies to Facilitate the Switch to Using R in the Research Methods Classroom
Ashley Abraham Grinnell College Students in research methods and statistics courses often receive in SPSS. However, Academic and industry trends also suggest a shift away from SPSS and towards the R statistical computing environment (Lindeløv, 2019; Muenchen, 2016). Instructor hesitancy towards adopting R in the undergraduate classroom may be related to the belief that it is too difficult for students. Despite concerns, research indicates that appropriate pedagogical practices when teaching R can improve student attitudes and learning outcomes, creating a push for instructors to take the leap towards R in the classroom (Counsell & Cribbie, 2020). Preliminary results about student attitudes indicate that learning goals related to statistics knowledge rather than R, and a labor-based contract for R assignments, can help mitigate student concerns.
Gamification of Statistics
Robert Kelley MiraCosta Community College Twenty-five games, each lasting 2 - 4 minutes, provide students practice with a variety of topics: hypothesis testing (Z test, Single Sample t Test, Paired Sample t Test, and Independent Sample t Test), proportions and the normal distribution, correlations (scatter plots, Pearson's r, APA write-up, examples in the news, etc), linear regression, effect size, etc. The games are posted to a web gaming site, and integrated at p2l.io into a menu of options. Connections are reinforced between statistical concepts and their visual representation. Instructors using the Canvas CMS can have successful completion of the games recorded using Canvas Quizzes.
Teaching Statistical Reproducibility
Jason S. McCarley, Raechel N. Soicher Oregon State University "Statistical reproducibility, the ability to repeat an analysis on a given set of data and produce the same results, is critical to trustworthy science. Here, we describe an instructional resource developed to encourage the practice of reproducible research. The resource includes a reading on the definition, purpose, and prerequisites of reproducibility, and an exercise that asks students to organize and document a set of simulated data for reproducible analysis. Learning outcomes are that students be able to: i) define statistical reproducibility, ii) explain the value of statistical reproducibility, iii) organize and document research artifacts to make analyses reproducible. Supported by an Instructional Resource Grant from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology"
Bringing Research Methods Home: Creating an Equitable Experience Across Delivery Formats
Jerome A. Lewis, Roxanne L. Sullivan Bellevue University It is more important now than ever that we ensure online psychology classes have parity with residential psychology classes as we see increasing numbers of psychology majors completing their courses online. Classes that require applied skills, such as research methods, can be more difficult to achieve parity. We will discuss our journey towards this goal. We will provide details about we orient course design, assignments, and materials to overcome the unique challenges of the online learning environment.
Detecting Cheaters and Plagiarism in Online Exams: Techniques and Data
Rainer Scheuchenpflug, Alexander Hörnlein University of Würzburg, Germany We developed different techniques to detect cheating (exchange of solutions between participants; copying solutions from other sources) in timed synchronous online exams (TSO) based on log-file analysis and by providing different problems to different participants through creation of randomized data sets. Log file analysis is rarely used by instructors, but has been shown to be effective. Different data sets helped to identify a total of 19 cheaters in 1924 participants in 10 statistics exams (0.99%) since 2020. So, the common prejudice of “unlimited cheating in synchronous online exams” is not supported by empirical data.
Replication Research Via the Collaborative Replications and Education Project
Jordan Wagge, Holly France Avila University The Collaborative Replications and Education Project (CREP) is a framework for supporting students and instructors in completing course-based research projects that contribute to work outside of the classroom. While following in the steps of published scholars by completing direct replications, students also contribute data to meta- or pooled analyses to estimate replicability of effects, and often add their own hypotheses to examine boundary conditions of these effects. As the current Executive Director and Research Assistant for CREP, we will share ways we have implemented CREP and provide suggestions for instructors in different contexts. This work is supported by NSF Award 2141930.
The ‘Single-Case Design’ as a Basis of Self-Exploration Amongst Undergraduates
Jason K. Emory University of California, Merced Single-case designs (SCD) as a form of self-assessment of behavior can be an effective pedogeological tool for helping students better understand the research process. In this approach students develop their own research question about an aspect of their behavior and conduct a SCD to measure and improve that behavior. The variables of interest, interventions implemented, and even specific SCD design are selected by the students.. Over the course of the semester, students are scaffolded through the entire process of design and data reporting. Overall, it is proposed here that this SCD project is a useful way to implement self-referential and experiential learning in a methods classroom.
Online and Face-to-Face: Teaching Students to Adapt Research Proposal Presentations Across Mediums
Qin Zhao, Jenni Redifer, Steven Wininger, Thomas Gross Western Kentucky University The proposal describes a research proposal assignment in an undergraduate Research Methods in Psychology course. It represents several best practices in undergraduate education, including student engagement, the high-impact practice of undergraduate research, and promoting critical thinking (AAC&U, 2022; Kilgo et al., 2015). Students choose a research question, conduct a literature review, develop a testable hypothesis, and design the study. Students turn in parts of the proposal separately to receive formative feedback. Importantly, we create a “2 in 1” learning experience by having students present their final proposal both as a poster, delivered in person, and as a PowerPoint presentation, delivered virtually on Blackboard. Based on student feedback and performance, the assignment effectively promotes student engagement and learning.
How to Create and Impact Students’ Curiosity of Conducting Research? How to Manage Those Curiosities Teaching the Process of Creating a Scientific Study?
Rachel Walker University of the Incarnate Word At our university our psychology majors take two Research Method courses. In the first course students create a research question and investigate/summarize articles. In the second course students create a research proposal based on the initial development of their research question. In the past we have found that students and professors struggle at the beginning to determine the research question and to find useful sources. Students tend to have broad research questions while professors try to assist in a variety of topics outside their expertise. These situations impact the professor in providing useful support to the development of the research project. Over time I have modified my strategy to increase the student’s curiosity, skills, and structure of the course.
Open Science Inspired Assessments across the curriculum
Helena Paterson, Phil McAleer University of Glasgow We present our experiences of designing assessments for teaching reproducible research methods. We have engaged in a curriculum redesign with a focus on open science over the last 6 years and one valuable resource for designing assessments has been the tools such as pre-registration, registered reports and pre-prints that the community had developed. We discuss present here example of how these have been integrated across the curriculum to enhance student skills both research design, but also in building the skills of writing well.
Revising Course Alignment to Prepare Students for Research Methods
Madelynn D. Shell, Daniel A. Clark, Andria F. Schwegler Texas A&M University - Central Texas Research Methods can be a challenging class for students and a frustrating class for faculty. However, by strategically planning course sequences and aligning course learning outcomes across the undergraduate psychology curriculum, students can enter the course with solid foundational knowledge and skills. Collaboration across program faculty to provide interleaved and scaffolded practice with content in Writing in Psychology and Behavioral Statistics prior to entering Research Methods creates a more consistent experience across class sections. In addition, this curricular alignment embeds two high-impact educational practices (i.e., writing intensive courses and undergraduate research) into the required curriculum, enabling equitable access to these impactful learning experiences for all program students.
Thursday December 8th
10:00a -10:15a PST || 1:00p -1:15p EST
10:15a -11:15a PST || 1:15p - 2:15p EST
Keynote Address: Main Room
Designing for Significant Learning in the Research Methods Course
Beth Morling University of Delaware Research Methods is the most important course in the undergraduate psychology major, because it’s where students first learn to think like psychological scientists. We can design the course to develop students’ abilities to produce their own research, or design it to identify and critique scientific claims. Either way, it’s not a course that students can “flash card” their way through. In my presentation, I will share some guiding principles and practical ideas for significant learning in research methods. I’ll share thoughts about building in repetition, designing forward-looking assessments, and supporting students socially. And I will specifically discuss self-graded homework, a technique that we have experimentally demonstrated can increase test scores and improve metacognition.
Main Room
Welcome - PsychTerms Organizing Committee
11:20a - 11:40a PST || 2:20p - 2:40p EST
Breakout Room A
Multiverse Analyses in the Classroom
Tom Heyman & Wolf Vanpaemel Leiden University (TH) & KU Leuven (WV) Establishing the robustness of a finding is an important goal in science. To reach that goal, one could conduct a multiverse analysis, which involves methodically examining the seemingly-arbitrary choices pertaining to data processing and model building. In this contribution, we describe how the multiverse approach can be implemented in student research projects within psychology programs. Embedding a multiverse project in students’ curricula addresses an important scientific need. More importantly, it offers students an ideal opportunity to put various statistical methods into practice, thereby also raising awareness about the abundance and consequences of arbitrary decisions in data-analysis. An attractive practical feature is that one can reuse existing datasets, which proves especially useful when data collection isn't feasible.
Breakout Room B
Assessment Methods for Teaching Methods: Multiple-Choice Testing With Elaboration
Acacia Overoye Utah Valley University Assessment can be a balance between practicality and authenticity. Assessments that are authentic and engaging (projects, papers) can be challenging to create and grade, whereas assessments that are quick (traditional test formats) can be too narrow in scope and don’t always showcase the depth of student learning. The present work investigated a blended approach – multiple-choice questions with elaboration (MCE). MCE questions require students to justify their answers to multiple-choice questions. Across 4 sections of an upper division research methods course students took quizzes that contained both traditional multiple-choice and MCE questions and evaluated their experience with the two assessment types. Results showed that students had better performance on MCE questions and evaluated them as better assessments of their learning.
Breakout Room C
Cultivating Research Consumer and Producer Skills Using Materials Related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Wan Wang University of Manitoba In psychology, content courses that teach the core knowledge of the discipline may naturally include topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), such as prejudice in social psychology or ethnic diversity in cultural psychology. Accordingly, existing DEI materials heavily focus on in-class discussions in content courses rather than in methodology courses. This project seeks to create a collection of open-access DEI materials to 1) raise students’ awareness of DEI issues via consuming research and 2) develop students’ skills in research design, data analysis, and communication to produce empirical research that may resolve barriers to EDI. Sample lecture example, activities, and assignments will be demonstrated.
15-minute Break
11:55a - 12:15p PST 2:55p - 3:15p EST
Breakout Room A
De-Mathifying Statistics: Incorporating Writing Strategies to Address Student Anxiety and Confidence
Leslie Martinez University of the Incarnate Word Oftentimes, sources of statistics anxiety are attributed to non-negotiable aspects of statistics courses, such as exposure to formulas, computing calculations, and having a fear of the instructor. Therefore, learning outcomes aimed to build computational skills through concept exposure in writing exercises, believing that writing strategies impact the relationship of course devaluation (i.e., worthless course) with confidence and anxiety. Participants completed the online Statistics Anxiety Battery (e.g., stats anxiety, attitudes, confidence, & devaluation) at three points in the semester. At key developmental times, students did brief writing exercises. Study results are immediately relevant to behavioral statistics instructors, who can develop writing-based interventions to circumvent students’ previous negative math experiences.
Breakout Room B
Integrating Diversity into Psychology Statistics Courses: Advice, Reflections, and Special Considerations
Hannah Osborn, Ruth Walker, Julie Madden, and Kristen Black University of Tennessee at Chattanooga In an increasingly diverse world, there has been a call for psychology educators to make efforts to integrate diversity in the instruction of all courses, including core curriculum courses such as statistics. We will present our efforts to create a lab manual that includes diversity-related datasets and examples for use while also learning the practical skills of data analysis. We will share examples of the published content from our lab manual, Applied Data Analysis in Psychology: Exploring Diversity with Statistics, as well as our complementary open education resources. Additionally, we will discuss the challenges we faced along the way, the successes we experienced, and translate those experiences into recommendations for those interested in taking on similar efforts in their statistics or methods courses.
Breakout Room C
Using the General Linear Model to Teach about Race in Research
Amanda Montoya UCLA Teaching from a general linear model (GLM) perspective, using the CourseKata textbook, can help students think flexibly about statistics. I will demonstrate an activity from my class about handling a multicategorical predictor, race, with a messy dataset examining race differences in income of authors with many different racial/ethnic categories (#PublishingPaidMe). We explore different ways to group race (e.g., White vs. Not White, Black vs. Not Black, top 5 most common groups). Because many students in my courses are mixed-race they often ask how they would be classified within these models. I demonstrate how to use the GLM to allow respondents of mixed race to be classified in multiple groups, an approach not possible from the traditional ANOVA perspective.
12:20p - 12:40p PST 3:20p - 3:40p EST
Breakout Room A
Is There Still Value in Teaching With Probability Threshold Heuristics?
Andrea Sell, Nicole Talarico, Jamie Bedics California Lutheran University In the past several years, many researchers across disciplines have pushed back against using arbitrary p-value thresholds in null hypothesis significance testing. In response, introductory statistics and methods textbooks have also started transitioning away from teaching these threshold heuristics and instead including a deeper discussion of the continuous nature of the probability value. What are the effects of the different conceptualizations of p-values on a student’s ability to interpret data? In this study, students interpreted SPSS output, answered questions to ascertain their representation of p-values, and completed a dichotomous thinking measure. We hypothesized that those who scored higher on the dichotomous thinking measure would rely more on the p-value and less on other aspects of the analysis in their interpretation.
Breakout Room B
How Well Do Self-Beliefs and Engagement Predict Learning Outcomes in an Introductory Statistics Course?
Zoe Tait, Hannah Lloyd, Erik Brockbank, Soohyun Nam Liao, Judy Fan UC San Diego Statistical literacy — the ability to evaluate empirical claims based on quantitative evidence — is increasingly vital for making sense of 21st-century global challenges. Our study investigates how the beliefs students bring to the classroom (measured with a pre-course survey) and how they engage with course material (measured using interaction with a digital learning platform) impact how well they learn core statistical concepts (measured using biweekly quizzes) in an introductory course at UC San Diego. We found that our measure of engagement was important for predicting learning outcomes, while initial beliefs did not explain substantial variance. Future work will evaluate any potential impact of innovative teaching techniques, including project-based learning, on both immediate learning and long-term academic achievement outcomes.
Breakout Room C
Integrating Research Methods and Statistics in a Team-Taught Introduction to Psychological Science Course
Tony Barnhart, Leslie Cameron, Nora McLean, Melanie Nyhof, Sara O’Brien, Kateryna Sylaska Carthage College Delivering research methods and statistics simultaneously has been integrated into the core curriculum of our Psychological Science department. This integration begins in PYC 1500 Introduction to Psychological Science, where students are introduced to the language of psychology research methods, the basics of research ethics, and the importance of clear communication of theory and results. Students work in small groups and collect data to address a theory-driven research question and present their project results as a group at the end of the semester. Implementing these themes in our intro course relies heavily on the team-teaching, split-format method that the faculty first used beginning in 2014.
Teaching Roundtables (gather.town)
12:45p - 1:45p PST 3:45p - 4:45p EST
How Can Ungrading Combat Statistics Anxiety in a Graduate Level Course?
Alyssa Counsell Toronto Metropolitan University Many students in Psychology experience statistics anxiety. Researchers have found a consistent negative relationship between statistics anxiety and grades (e.g., Hanna & Dempster, 2009). Grades are often used as a proxy for statistical knowledge, however; ungrading literature suggests that grades do not reflect skills or mastery, and in fact, often hinder learning (see e.g., Kohn, 2011). In this session, I will discuss student and instructor experiences in a graduate level statistics course where I incorporated ungrading. Specifically, I will share two time points of data from my course whereby we assess how ungrading and associated course activities affected students’ statistical anxiety levels as well as other skills and experiences relevant to the course’s learning outcomes.
Ecological Validity: Incorporating Research Methodologies and Research Settings
Kim Ernst Loyola University New Orleans Not all research methods textbooks include coverage of ecological validity. Nonetheless, undergraduates would seem to benefit from some exposure to this relevant concept. Thus, one teaching approach is to present two carefully selected investigations with differing reported methodologies (i.e., research settings) designed to test similar or competing hypotheses. In the narrative process, the concept of ecological validity is highlighted. Subsequently, undergraduates gain exposure not only to distinct research areas, but their knowledge and understanding of external validity and ecological validity are improved.
Deeply Engaging Students From Course Design to Translational Learning in the Classroom
Gregory R. Samanez-Larkin Duke University For many years I taught my version of someone else's course. I embraced lecturing as entertainment and got glowing course evaluations and a teaching award. But guess what? I wasn't teaching effectively at all. Not intentionally, but it was all smoke and mirrors. Three years ago I started from scratch and designed a new course (using backward design) collaboratively with students in a course design seminar. Together we designed an engaging two-semester course experience that deeply engages students to enhance learning and the practical application of course skills and knowledge across a range of future careers. I'll share the fun and struggle of what's it been like making this work.
The Impact of Study Resources and Delivery Methods on Course Performance
Jennifer Roters Brock University This study’s goal was to determine the associations between student performance with the use of online resources, course delivery method, and length of the course. Thus, we sought to determine whether a higher use of online resources was positively correlated with higher grades, and which resources accounted for the most variability in grades. Additionally, we determined whether performance differed for online versus face-to-face instruction. Finally, we ascertained whether the course duration was correlated with performance. We used archival data collected from the university’s educational website, Sakai. The participants were students enrolled in a Psychology statistics course between 2018-2021. Course performance was measured by final course grades, and use of resources was assessed by number of and downloads of resources.
Improving Research Reports with Writing Workshops
Jessica LaPaglia Morningside University A writing workshop model was implemented in a research methods course. In these writing workshops, students completed pre-writing worksheets with their research teams and were then prompted to write sections of the paper in class (e.g, “Write an attention-grabbing first sentence”). These writing workshops serve to 1) help students organize their thoughts prior to writing 2) get students to begin the writing process early, 3) provide students with feedback and support from peers and the instructor during the writing process. In this teaching roundtable, I will share student perceptions of the writing workshops and all relevant course materials for attendees to use in their classes.
Successful Undergraduate Research Proposals: Strategies That Are Effective and Efficient
Brooke O. Breaux University of Louisiana at Lafayette Teaching psychological research methods to undergraduates who have only had an introductory psychology course is challenging. I restructured such a course in a way that enables students to more effectively and efficiently produce a quality research proposal using APA Style guidelines. I created a three-stage, step-by-step process for developing a research proposal with each stage addressing specific learning goals. I reordered the course topics so that the concepts discussed in class would be relevant to the part of the research proposal students are working on. Not only does this process make developing a research proposal from start to finish easier on me and my students, but this model can also easily be shared with instructors who are looking for resources.
Make APA style exciting with The APAzing Race
Maureen E O'Brien Christian Brothers University The APAzing Race is an innovative classroom activity that engages students with APA style. In episodes played throughout the semester, pairs of students race around campus looking for APAzing Race challenges. They must use their APA Publication Manuals to answer questions and complete APA style tasks then race back to the classroom to submit their work. Challenges are located in student-centered offices around campus, such as the library, writing center, and career services, which also ensures students are familiar with helpful resources across campus. Students report loving the activity (e.g., “APAzing race is amazing. Please keep it. I learned so much about APA writing throughout the course!”), and a librarian said, “I’ve never seen students so excited about APA style!”
Our Students Have Passion for Statistics, Do Yours? Engaging Introductory Statistics Students in a Project-Based Curriculum
Kristel M. Gallagher & Kristin F. Flaming Thiel College & Valdosta State University How can we infuse passion into our students’ experience of introductory statistics? Our presentation will introduce Passion-Driven Statistics (https://passiondrivenstatistics.com), a project-based, introductory statistics curriculum that supports students in conducting original research with real-world data. Funded by the NSF, our curriculum engages introductory statistics students in data-driven research with large, real-world data sets that provide context and meaning to their understanding of statistics. Students pose exciting research questions that matter to them personally or professionally, then discover how to answer those questions using real data and statistics. In pursuing these answers, students also learn basic statistical programming in a software platform of their instructors’ choosing (e.g., SAS, R, SPSS, Stata, Python).
Using Whole-Class Data Collection Projects to Encourage Teamwork and Accountability Among Research Methods Students
Amanda Joyce Murray State University Many classes in Research Methodology encourage students to gain first-hand research experience through data collection. However, having students work individually on projects can lead to a heavy grading burden for instructors, and partnered or group projects can be fraught with interpersonal complaints and social loafing. The purpose of this session is to explore an option for whole-class collaborative data collection that still allows students individually to propose, analyze, write about, and present data on a project of their own personal choosing. The collaborative data collection process will be reflected upon with respect to the accountability system and teamwork that it encourages.
Using Social Annotation Platforms for Pre-Lecture Preparation and Post-Lecture Practice in an Introductory Statistics Course
Andrea Sell, Nicole Talarico, Jamie Bedics California Lutheran University Social learning platforms, which not only allow students to read articles but also digitally interact asynchronously with their peers while reading, have been successfully used to increase community, motivation, and preparedness for class. Typically, instructors upload a text and ask students to comment and discuss the text via the platform. In this demonstration, I will outline unique pre-and-post class session assignments that use social annotation tools to help students prepare for class and practice the course concepts in an introductory-level statistics class. In these assignments, instead of asking students to read text, they are asked to solve practice problems collaboratively. I will demonstrate course-ready assignments using a social annotation program, including student feedback, completion rates, and limitations.
Listen-Explain-Write: Using evidenced-based teaching activities to promote equity and inclusivity in the classroom
Hayden Schill UC San Diego Listen-Explain-Write is a modified Think-Pair-Share classroom exam correction activity in which the instructor (1) explains concepts behind commonly missed questions, (2) pairs students in small groups to explain the concept to each other, and (3) offers an optional written assignment (e.g., midgerm “re-grade”) for students to explain the concept in writing to get partial credit back on the exam. This activity is low stakes, transferable, and would work for both small and large classes. Evidence-based teaching research suggests that aspects of this activity enhance understanding of concepts as well as increase inclusivity, reasoning skills, and community in the classroom. This is especially important in classes that students often bring preconceptions of ability in, such as research methods/statistics courses.
Experiential Learning: Is It Necessary That Students Conduct Real Studies in Their Methods Courses?
Jen Dyer-Seymour & Justin Matthews CSU Monterey Bay When teaching research methods and experimental design courses instructors have to make the important decision of which types of class assignments and activities to incorporate into their course designs. These assignments need to meet both the course level outcomes but also bolster the larger undergraduate major curriculum. This is often a challenging task since classes are experienced over time, building on each other, and taught by different instructors. A common element of some research design focused classes in the act of conducting a real study to test a hypothesis. We will lead a discussion about the pros and cons of including this activity in methods courses.