Flipping an Introductory Biostatistics Course: A Case Study of Student Attitudes and Confidence

Abstract

Flipped classrooms have become an interesting alternative to traditional lecture-based courses throughout the undergraduate curriculum. In this article, we compare a flipped classroom approach to the traditional lecture-based approach to teaching introductory biostatistics to first-year graduate students in public health. The traditional course was redesigned to include video lectures and online quizzes which the students were expected to complete before coming to class, followed by a short in-class lecture and time working on applied statistics problems in class. We compared the opinions of the biostatistics field and confidence applying biostatistics methods of 46 students who took the flipped course to 52 students who took the traditional, lectured-based course offering. We found similar end-of-semester opinions and levels of confidence between students in the flipped classes and those in the traditional, lecture-focused classes, though students in the flipped course reported very high satisfaction with the model.

Mühendi̇sli̇k Öğrenci̇leri̇ni̇n İstati̇sti̇ğe Karşi Tutumlari: Çoklu Durum Çalişmasi

“…Studies investigating students' attitudes toward statistics were mostly collected data from different disciplines other than engineering such as business, psychology, and health sciences (e.g., Carlson & Winquist, 2011, Chiesi & Primi, 2009Gundlach et al 2015;Griffith et al, 2012). These studies showed that using technology (Huynh, Buglin, & Bedford, 2014;Loux, Varner, & VanNatta, 2016) and use of real examples related to students' field or life (Kiekkas et al, 2015;Neumann, Hood, & Neumann, 2013); use of classroom workbooks (Carlson & Winquest, 2011), and use of alternative assessment methods (Posner, 2011) might help students to have more positive attitudes toward statistics. However, some studies showed that students' attitudes toward statistics generally declines throughout the semester (Schau & Emmioglu, 2012); even though, interventions have been made (Carnell, 2008).…”

Findings from a Survey of Statistics and Biostatistics Instructors in the Health Sciences Who Teach Using an Online or Flipped Format

“…The use of online and flipped formats has been reported in the literature in many different disciplines, such as computer programming and veterinary professional skills (Moffett and Mill 2014;Mok 2014). This trend is also apparent in the health sciences, including nursing, physiology, and epidemiology (Critz and Knight 2013;Tune 2013;Moraros et al 2015;Howard et al 2017), as well as in (bio)statistics (Keeler and Steinhorst 1995;Samsa et al 2012;Wilson 2013;Schwartz 2014;Winquist and Carlson 2014;Gundlach et al 2015;Peterson 2015;Loux et al 2016;McLaughlin and Kang 2017).…”

Let Master of Public Health Students Experience Statistical Reasoning

“…Masterlevel public health students (commonly known as MPH students) constitute a sizable portion of consumers of today's biostatistics education. However, only recently did this distinct population of students become targets of focused pedagogical research by statistics educators (e.g., Loux et al 2016). This reflects an increasing awareness among statistics education researchers that students in different disciplines require different statistical curricula and accordingly different statistical pedagogical methods.…”

“…The following real-world example further underscores the need to fill the foregoing critical gap. The flipped classroom approach is increasingly popular among biostatistics educators (Loux et al 2016, McGraw and Chandler, 2015, McLaughlin and Kang 2017, Styers et al 2018). However, a study by Jensen et al (2015) suggests that the known benefits of the flipped classroom may not be attributable to the flipped classroom per se.…”