Successful Integration of Data Science in Undergraduate Biostatistics Courses Using Cognitive Load Theory.

ABSTRACT: Biostatistics courses are integral to many undergraduate biology programs. Such courses have often been taught using point-and-click software, but these programs are now seldom used by researchers or professional biologists. Instead, biology professionals typically use programming languages, such as R, which are better suited to analyzing complex data sets. However, teaching biostatistics and programming simultaneously has the potential to overload the students and hinder their learning. We sought to mitigate this overload by using cognitive load theory (CLT) to develop assignments for two biostatistics courses. We evaluated the effectiveness of these assignments by comparing student cohorts who were taught R using these assignments (n = 146) with those who were taught R through exa

SUBMITTER: Guzman LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6812565 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature