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The purpose of this project is to assess the impact of integrating diversity-related topics into a statistics laboratory course on students’ perceptions of the course, attitudes towards statistics, and general attitudes toward diversity. Within the field of psychology, the American Psychological Association (APA) has focused on diversity in the undergraduate major by encouraging the infusion of diversity-related topics and courses at all levels of the undergraduate curriculum (American Psychological Association, 2013). Often, incorporating diversity issues into statistics courses can feel overwhelming to educators due to the complex nature of the material presented. Nevertheless, scholars do encourage that diversity content and examples be used as methods to teach about the nature of statistics, such as cultural diversity (e.g., Nolan & Simon, 2018). In this vein, the authors (Black et al., in prep) developed a statistical laboratory manual that considered a wide variety of diversity-related topics (e.g., ageism, sexism, LGBTQ+ bias, racism, among others) at every level of the presentation of information: from introducing the statistical test, to the walk-through examples provided, and course assessments assigned to students. This lab manual is being adopted as a required text for all students enrolled in the PSY 2040 statistics laboratory course (a requirement for the psychology major). For example, one chapter on Two-Way ANOVAs covered the combined impact of biological sex and gender on a person’s likability in the workplace. Students were provided with background about the difference between biological sex and gender identity, and what transgender identity means. Then, students were shown a step-by-step guide about how to complete the statistical analysis, and then asked to interpret what the results mean in real-world terms (“did a person’s likability in the workplace change based on the combination of the biological sex and gender identity?”) and asked to reflect on how these results could have an impact outside of the course and in their everyday lives (“how can workplaces encourage inclusion of employees who are transgender?”). Therefore, the first major aim of this project is to assess students’ attitudes toward diversity-related topics before and after taking this course to determine whether the introduction to diversity content in this way has an impact on how students think about and engage with diversity-related information. Further, this course is unique in that it is taught by graduate students in the psychology master’s program. These students were not involved in the creation of this lab manual, and therefore, may also be unaware of these diversity-related issues and are likely encountering them for the first time in teaching hands-on statistical knowledge. Therefore, we are also interested in gauging their perceptions of diversity-related topics before and after teaching this course and whether teaching this course impacts their thoughts about and engagement with diversity-related information. Beyond attitudes toward diversity, we are also interested in how the presentation of statistical knowledge via hands-on examples incorporating diversity-related content impacts students’ evaluation of the course, and statistics more generally. This is based in evidence that students’ attitudes toward statistics are often positively related to performance in statistics courses – the more positively students feel about statistics, they better they perform in their statistics courses (e.g., Devaney, 2010). Further, evidence suggests that using hands-on, walk-through examples that involve solving collaborative problems and answering conceptual questions related to these problems, improve attitudes towards statistics courses (e.g., Carlson & Winquist, 2011). As such, we explore whether students’ statistics anxiety and overall evaluation of the lab manual are impacted by taking this course. We will also consider whether trait-level differences in Need for Cognition, and personality, might moderate the aforementioned relationships. This is based in prior research that Need for Cognition (the individual tendency to engage in and enjoy cognitive endeavors, contributes to academic performance; Cacioppo et al., 1997) is related to a student’s performance academically and attitudes toward their education (e.g., Grass et al., 2017) as well as personality dimensions like conscientiousness (e.g., Trapmann et al., 2007). As such, we include these as variables with could impact, generally, how students view course content and their broad attitudes toward their courses. Finally, to determine the impact that this course has had on student learning outcomes, we will request from students that they allow us to use their overall course grade, as well as attendance tracked throughout the semester. The inclusion of this will allow us to investigate the trait level factors, outlined above, impacted a) attitudes toward diversity, and b) overall success with the course in the newly designed format. |
