Assessing Effectiveness of Mnemonics for Tertiary Students in a Hybrid Introductory Statistics Course

Abstract

Mnemonics (memory aids) are often viewed as useful in helping students recall information, and thereby possibly reducing stress and freeing up more cognitive resources for higher-order thinking. However, there has been little research on statistics mnemonics, especially for large classes. This article reports on the results of a study conducted during two consecutive fall semesters at a large U.S. university. In 2014, a large sample (n D 1487) of college students were asked about the usefulness of a set of 19 published statistics mnemonics presented in class, and in 2015, the students (n D 1468) were presented 12 mnemonics related to inference and then asked whether or not they used mnemonics on that exam. This article discusses how students assess the usefulness of mnemonics and evaluates the relationship between using mnemonics and reducing anxiety. Additionally, the relationship between mnemonic usage and learning outcomes achievement will be discussed, along with this study's limitations and implications for teaching.

Combined cognitive–motivational modules delivered via an LMS increase undergraduate biology grades.

“…Intervention studies promoting cognitive processes have often focused on the effects on achievement of one process at a time, such as activating prior knowledge relevant to the learned material, scaffolding systematic note-taking, or providing guidance in summarizing the content (e.g., Hodds et al, 2014;McNamara, 2004McNamara, , 2017O'Reilly et al, 2004). Among undergraduate students in survey courses, cognitive interventions that were found to enhance achievement in different STEM domains included instruction in summarizing text (Bednall & Kehoe, 2011) and activating prior knowledge before learning in psychology (Gurlitt & Renkl, 2010), prompting to sketch the learned content in biology (Cromley & Mara, 2018;Stevens, L. M., & Hoskins, S. G., 2014), prompting comparing-and-contrasting for learning geology (Jee et al, 2013), teaching mnemonics for learning statistics (Mocko et al, 2017), and fostering self-explanation (McNamara, 2017).…”

Interview With Larry Lesser

“…The good news is that there are pedagogical practices and resources that can be readily implemented (a concise list is in Table 2 of Wagler and Lesser 2011). Our English learner work also spawned papers on other language-related topics, including readability (Wagler et al 2015;) and mnemonics (Mocko et al 2017), and I've also written on other diversity-related topics (e.g., . AR: Thanks especially for the two concrete examples that help me to understand this issue better.…”

ABCs of Heart Failure Management: A Guide for Nurse Practitioners

“…2e4 Mnemonics are memory tools that aid clinicians to easily recall and encode new information, thus freeing up cognitive space. 5 In a study published in 2019, 6 30 internal medicine residents participated in using a mnemonic with the objective of creating a structured approach for initiation of goals of care conversations. The 30 students were split into groups of 4 or 5 and underwent a 90-minute session to review the mnemonic and apply it in a simulation.…”