Olimpo Jeffrey T, Pevey Ryan S, McCabe Thomas M
Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX 79968.
School of Biological Sciences, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO 80639.
J Microbiol Biol Educ. 2018 Apr 27;19(1). doi: 10.1128/jmbe.v19i1.1450. eCollection 2018.
Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) provide an avenue for student participation in authentic scientific opportunities. Within the context of such coursework, students are often expected to collect, analyze, and evaluate data obtained from their own investigations. Yet, limited research has been conducted that examines mechanisms for supporting students in these endeavors. In this article, we discuss the development and evaluation of an interactive statistics workshop that was expressly designed to provide students with an open platform for graduate teaching assistant (GTA)-mentored data processing, statistical testing, and synthesis of their research findings. Mixed methods analyses of pre/post-intervention survey data indicated a statistically significant increase in students' reasoning and quantitative literacy abilities in the domain, as well as enhancement of student self-reported confidence in and knowledge of the application of various statistical metrics to real-world contexts. Collectively, these data reify an important role for scaffolded instruction in statistics in preparing emergent scientists to be data-savvy researchers in a globally expansive STEM workforce.
基于课程的本科研究经历（CUREs）为学生参与真实的科学机会提供了一条途径。在这类课程作业的背景下，学生通常需要收集、分析和评估从自己的调查中获得的数据。然而，关于支持学生进行这些努力的机制的研究却很有限。在本文中，我们讨论了一个交互式统计研讨会的开发和评估，该研讨会专门设计用于为学生提供一个开放平台，让他们在研究生助教（GTA）的指导下进行数据处理、统计测试以及研究结果的综合。对干预前后调查数据的混合方法分析表明，学生在该领域的推理和定量素养能力有统计学上的显著提高，同时学生自我报告的对各种统计指标在实际情境中的应用的信心和知识也有所增强。总体而言，这些数据证实了统计学中的支架式教学在培养新兴科学家成为全球 STEM 劳动力中精通数据的研究人员方面的重要作用。
