Design and Evaluation of SOCR Tools for Simulation in Undergraduate Probability

and Statistics Courses

Nicolas Christou, Ivo D. Dinov & Juana Sanchezwww.SOCR.ucla.edu

ISI 2007, Lisbon28 August, 2007

Nicolas Christou, Ivo D. Dinov & Juana Sanchezwww.SOCR.ucla.edu

ISI 2007, Lisbon28 August, 2007

It’s Online, Therefore It Exists!

OutlineOutline

•What is SOCR?

•Demonstrations

•Experiments

•Activities (wiki)

•Design of Study

•Results

•Future Research and Development

What is SOCR?What is SOCR?

DemonstrationsDemonstrations

http://www.socr.ucla.edu/

•Poker•Roulette•Die coin•Central limit theorem•Confidence intervals

ExperimentsExperiments

FEATURES

•60+ Experiments

•Simulations

•Summary Stats

•Model vs. Sample

FEATURES

•60+ Experiments

•Simulations

•Summary Stats

•Model vs. Sample

PokerPoker

RouletteRoulette

Die coinDie coin

Central limit theoremCentral limit theorem

Confidence intervalsConfidence intervals

ActivitiesActivities

Educational MaterialsEducational Materials

SOCR Experiments ActivitiesSOCR Experiments Activities

SOCR Distributions ActivitiesSOCR Distributions Activities

Design of studyDesign of study

Data collectedSatisfactionAttitude surveysLearning stylesExam scores

PopulationLower division:

4 classes2 control2 treatment> 300 students

Upper division:4 classes1 control1 treatment2 cross-over> 120 students

Duration3 times/per week with instructor1 hour discussion (upper division)1 hour discussion + lab (lower division)

Felder-Silverman-Soloman LSIFelder-Silverman-Soloman LSIFour categoriesI: Active/ReflectiveII: Sensing/IntuitiveIII: Visual/VerbalIV: Global/Sequential

Students take an online questionnaire of 44 questionsEach category has 11 questionsEach question has two answers (a, b)Answer “a” gets the value -1, “b” gets the value +1

Example: Category I1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11a a b a a a a a a a aTotal score: -9 Strong Active

0 <= ABS(LSI) <=3 4 <= ABS(LSI) < 7 7 <= ABS(LSI) <= 11Balanced Moderate Strong

Felder-Silverman-Soloman LSIFelder-Silverman-Soloman LSI

URL for LSI: http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html

Moodle/SOCR (requires student ID): http://moodle.stat.ucla.edu/course

Spreadsheet to compute the LSI

UCLA Royce HallUCLA Royce Hall

Basilica di Sant'Ambrogio, Milan

ResultsResults• Some group differences are significant

• Some Felder-Silverman LSI dimensions are significant

• Higher level of student engagement (informal)

• Students’ satisfaction

ResultsResultsTable 1: Quantitative results measuring student learning in the two Stats 100A classes (Christou, Fall 2005, Fall 2006)

ResultsResultsTable 2: Quantitative results measuring student learning in the two Stats 13 classes (Christou, Fall 2005, Fall 2006)

ResultsResults

ResultsResultsRegression results for the LSI effects on the overall quantitative performance for Stats 13 (Christou)

Future Research &

Development

Future Research &

Development

• Classroom testing for the effectiveness of SOCR (2005-06, 2006-07)• New tools under development• More SOCR activities for Wiki page• Annual SOCR Workshops at UCLA in August

Live web streaming available at:wiki.stat.ucla.edu/socr/index.php/SOCR_Events_Aug2007

• SOCR usage: www.SOCR.ucla.edu• National Internet-based Science Educational resource: www.NSER.org

SOCR Acknowledgments

Funded by NSF DUE 0716055 & 0442992

www.SOCR.ucla.eduwww.StatisticsResource.org

CollaboratorsI Dinov, N Christou, J Sanchez, R Gould, J Cui, A Che, A Anderson, P Chui, R Gidwani