Enhancing the Introductory Statistics Course: Comparing Student Learning and Performance in Traditional and Web-Enhanced Traditional Courses

Abstract

A redesign of a traditional introductory statistics course was performed with the intent of increasing student success in the course without the extreme burden of implementing a flipped course. A study was then conducted to compare the new format (web-enhanced traditional) to the traditional format taught by the same professor with the same assignments, quizzes, and exams during the same semester. Students selected their own sections of the course to take but were not aware of the different class formats when they enrolled. Students in both course formats were similar demographically, with similar math ACT scores. It was found that students who participated in the web-enhanced traditional course were more successful in completing the course and performed better on course assessments than those students who participated in the traditional introductory statistics course. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

Keywords

• First course
• Flipped
• Learning
• Student performance
• Web-Enhanced