Captivating Students in the 21 st Century

1. Captivating Students in the 21st Century Using Online SPSS Simulations to Support Statistical Techniques Dr Andrew Clegg Principal Lecturer for Learning and TeachingProgramme Co-ordinator for Tourism Management

3. Background: Statistics – ‘The Problem Child’

4. Background: GSCE Entry Profile – Business & Management • Sports Science undergraduates - 80% had GCSE grades C or B; 7% were either mature students or marks were not available, so only 13% of students had higher than GCSE B

5. Background: GSCE Entry Profile – Business & Management ‘How do I calculate a percentage?’

6. Background: GSCE Entry Profile – Business & Management ‘How do I calculate a percentage?’ ‘I hate Maths!’

7. Background: GSCE Entry Profile – Business & Management ‘How do I calculate a percentage?’ ‘I hate Maths!’ ‘How does this relate to my degree?’

8. Student Attitudes to Statistics • Zeidner (1990)* – Statistics Anxiety ‘a performance characterised by extensive worry, intrusive thoughts, mental disorganization, tension, and physiological arousal … when exposed to statistics content, problems, instructional situations, or evaluative contexts, and is commonly claimed to debilitate performance in a wide variety of academic situations by interfering with the manipulation of statistics data and solution of statistics problems’ [*cited in Onwuegbuzie and Wilson, 2003, p. 196]

9. Student Attitudes to Statistics • A scan of the available literature reveals a common and persistent theme: • High levels of anxiety... ‘for many students statistics is perhaps the most anxiety-provoking, difficult, or critical subject within their courses of study’ (Baharun & Porter, 2009) • ‘Statistics courses are viewed by most students as an obstacle standing in the way of attaining their desired degree’ (Perney and Ravid, 1991) • ‘While the material covered, the level of difficultly, and the approach vary enormously, most have one aspect in common: the course is typically the most unpopular in the academic programme’ (Keller et al, 1988)

10. Student Attitudes to Statistics • Maths anxiety is transferred to statistics anxiety (Perney & David, 1990) • Problems of contextualisation – where, why and how does it fit in? • Emergence of wider Research Methods Anxiety (Papanastasiou & Zembylas, 2008) • Coping strategy – failure is a foregone conclusion therefore accept low grade in a statistics module and recoup elsewhere – priority is a pass mark (40%)

11. Student Attitudes to Statistics • Cruise et al (1985): Components of Anxiety

12. Background: Grade Profile

13. Background: Grade Profile

14. Rationale: Simulations in Context

15. Rationale • The development of a blended learning approach to statistics to: • To reduce student anxiety and improve student understanding and confidence in the applied use of basic statistical techniques • To help students’ application of statistics through scenario-based exercises • To provide self-directed support for statistical analysis using SPSS and Access • To provide a quantitative foundation for additional research skills, and the formulation of Level 3 Management Projects/Dissertations

16. Blended Learning Approach

17. Adobe Captivate

18. Captivate Features • Authoring tool designed to create software demonstrations, software simulations, branched scenarios, and randomized quiz files • Capability to build and edit interactive software demonstrations, recording in real time or using screen capture that snaps a sequence of still images and then builds mouse movement simulations to create the appearance of a running program • Capability to add captions, clickable hotspots, text entry boxes, rollovers, videos, etc

24. Example Simulation: Student T-Test

47. Student Feedback

48. Student Feedback 2009-2010 74% of students made use of online simulations at some point during the module [n=62]

49. Student Feedback 2009-2010 [n=62]

50. Student Feedback 2009-2010 [n=62]