Respond to the following in a minimum of 175 words:

• Suppose a university teacher wants to know whether or not requiring attendance improves student learning. How could she find out? Describe an experiment that an instructor might actually use.
• Review the experiments posted by your classmates. Evaluate the pros and cons of their proposals, and when applicable, suggest improvements or ask follow-up questions.

REPLY

This post I think can really be researched now due to our pandemic situation. Everyone is on virtual learning for the time being but that will be temporary at the same time I think that we could learn from this. I feel this study can apply at any grade level for the student. A teacher can find out if attendance improves learning by dividing her class into groups with different attendance requirements with each group. One group can be required attendance, one group not, and she could do third group with a mix of both attendance requirements (like hybrid). She can then assign the same work/homework to each group for a certain amount of time and once that time is out she can have a test in the end to see her results for her experiment. During the experiment she must make sure that everyone is able to have access to the same materials, readings, supplies, etc. if not then she will not be able to form a conclusion or it will not be accurate because she has limited data. The teacher will base her findings off data and can compare it to other statistical information to validate her hypothesis. Each student should have equivalent work to formulate an accurate conclusion the only difference is the attendance situation during the experiment. Once each student has taken the test and the teacher analyzes her data she can make adjustments to her syllabus and her teaching lessons.

REPLY

Statistics are an important part of research. As a critical thinker, how important is it to understand what statistics really mean and why?