Imagine the Biology department needs to decide which lab curriculum yields bette
ID: 185493 • Letter: I
Question
Imagine the Biology department needs to decide which lab curriculum yields better student outcomes. Five sections are assigned to curriculum A, and five sections are assigned to curriculum B. All sections are administered a pre- and post-test that measures students' attitudes toward science and knowledge of biology. The department wants to see if students' gains are greater in one curriculum or the other. What statistical test should be done to determine if there is a significant difference? Explain why you chose this test.
Explanation / Answer
A mode should be calculated.
First calculate the difference between gains for each students in their pre- and post-test i.e. (gain in post -test ) -(gain in pre- test) for both curriculums.
Then calculate the mode values of the differences and see which of the 2 curriculums has a higher mode value. That particular curriculum has higher gains.
Mode is a test that calculates the value which is most abundant in a population.
To find whether the calculated mode values for the 2 curriculums is significantly different perform an unpaired student t-test on it. A students t-test predicts whether 2 independent variables are significantly different from each other or it happened by chance.