Quantitative and Qualitative Methods

In this section are a collection modules to help you with  data.

Quantitative Methods. These modules are about applying statistical techniques to your data. These modules are designed to be very practical, simple, and easy to use.

ANOVA  We collect data from 26 students in our math class: the student’s major, favorite flavor, and score on a diagnostic math test. We want to know if this data provides statistically significant evidence that a student’s major and/or favorite flavor has a predictive effect on how such a student will, on average, score on that diagnostic math test.

Paired-samples t-test We give the students an algebra quiz (the before scores). The next class we give the same students a quick review focusing on their most common mistakes (the treatment). Then we re-test the students with a similar algebra quiz (the after scores). We want to determine if this treatment is effective, i.e., does it raise quiz scores.

Independent-samples t-test We want to know if a new way of teaching is better. So, we teach one group of students the old way (the control group) and another group of students the new way (the treatment group). We give both groups of students the same quiz and record the results (our data). We want to determine if our data provides statistically significant evidence that the new way of teaching (the treatment) is effective, i.e., does it raise the average quiz score?

Qualitative Methods. These modules are focused on methods that do NOT involve statistics, for example interviews.

The interview based project.   This modules is on including interviews in your SoTL research. It features very interesting and practical how-to videos on interview techniques as well as examples of SoTL articles which include interviews.