A Comparison of Teaching Strategies

In any learning environment, there are several different teaching strategies. These strategies (which can be composed of several components such as homework, computer aid, and others) may depend on several factors, such as the teacher's preference, availability of resources, or time constraints. Thus, it is of interest to determine which strategies or components are most effective. The goal of this experiment is to compare several teaching strategies that incorporate two common components (homework assignments (H) and computer tutorials (T)), examining which strategies are most effective. The experiment was conducted on University of Alberta students with a major in Mathematics or Statistics. All 140 student volunteers were randomly assigned to one of four different teaching strategies. The randomization ensured an equal number to each group. The four different groups to consider are the following.

Group 1: C (control group, only lecture notes and discussion)

Group 2: H (control plus weekly homework assignments)

Group 3: T (control plus computer tutorials)

Group 4: HT (control plus weekly homework as well as computer tutorials)

The experiment was conducted over the summer term with the response variable being the student score on the final exam (out of 100) given to students at the end of the term. To ensure equality, the final exam was conducted for all students at the same time in the Pavilion gymnasium. The primary goal of this experiment is to determine if there is a difference in student achievement based on the different teaching methods. If so, which components (homework and computer tutorials) have the greatest impact on learning? All students were taught using the exact same set of course notes.

Column Variable Name Description of Variable

1 ID ID number assigned to each student

2 Major M = Mathematics, S = Statistics

3 Strategy teaching strategy: C, H, T, HT

4 FX Final exam score (out of 100)

5 FX2 Second final exam score (out of 100) for the control group

1) Based on your confidence intervals below, use the intervals to justify the answer

i. Is there sufficient evidence that adding weekly homework assignments alone (in addition to lecture notes and discussion) increased the final exam marks, on average?

C and H: