Laboratory, workshop, and cooperative learning approaches are some pedagogical methods that raise student interest and involvement in their course work. The present article describes an experiment in applying such methods to teaching a general statistics course to non-mathematics majors, and its statistical assessment. A voluntary, one-hour weekly lab was offered to the general statistics course students. It was developed using computers, e-mail, and Minitab, in conjunction with learning groups, and with the utilization of a Lab Assistant. The results of such experience was then assessed through several instruments, including a student survey that collected their reactions, comments, and suggestions for improvements. Then, a preliminary statistical analysis of some of the course data collected, comparing grade results of students who attended the workshop with those who did not, is presented. Finally, some general conclusions regarding this workshop's effectiveness, its recruitment and retention efforts and directions for future work, are also discussed.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education