{"pk":1786,"title":"Comparison of Learning Outcomes for Simulation-based and Traditional Inference Curricula in a Designed Educational Experiment","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Conducting inference is a cornerstone upon which the practice of statistics is based. As such, a large portion of most introductory statistics courses is focused on teaching the fundamentals of statistical inference. The goal of this study is to make a formal comparison of learning outcomes under the traditional and simulation-based inference curricula. A randomized experiment was conducted to administer the two curricula to students in an introductory statistics course. Students of the simulation-based curriculum were found to have improved learning outcomes on topics in statistical inference; however, a clear violation of between-student independence due to group administration of curriculum treatments casts considerable doubt on the statistical significance of these results. A simulation study is used to demonstrate the volatility of Type I error rates in educational studies where classroom level covariance structures exist by comparisons are made on the student level.","language":"en","license":null,"keywords":[{"word":"simulation-based inference, statistics education, curriculum comparison"}],"section":"Investigations","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0wm523b0","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Karsten","middle_name":"","last_name":"Maurer","name_suffix":"","institution":"Miami University","department":"None"},{"first_name":"Dennis","middle_name":"","last_name":"Lock","name_suffix":"","institution":"Iowa State University","department":"None"}],"date_submitted":"2015-04-03T22:28:58Z","date_accepted":"2015-04-03T22:28:58Z","date_published":"2016-05-12T20:24:15Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"","type":"","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/tise/article/1786/galley/1232/download/"}]}