An Online Course for Learning Basic Statistics Concepts in Higher Education: An Evaluation Study

Abstract

An online course was designed for students in higher education to learn basic statistics concepts, supplementary with four face-to-face tutorials. This study evaluated the designed course, with a focus on students’ perceptions of course implementation and course materials, through questionnaire surveys and focus group interviews. The surveys found that students especially recognized the help of the video clips for learning sampling distribution and central limit theorem, and the simulations for understanding confidence interval and sampling distribution. The focus group interviews found that students generally recognized the overall support from the three main types of course materials - video clips, simulations and quizzes - on learning basic statistics concepts. Nearly half of the students indicated their preference to first watch the online video clips and then do the online quizzes and further return to the video clips when they encountered difficulties. This study revealed students’ need of face-to-face tutorials along different time points in the blended learning process.