Calibrated peer review: The application of statistical concepts to a biological research question

Abstract

This project used Calibrated Peer Review™ (CPR) for Teaching Experimental, Ethical, and Quantitative (TEEQ) Biology in a freshman biology course to help students connect what they learn in lecture to both current and historical research endeavors. The innovation is to introduce reading primary literature and writing about statistical skills in a way that is allied to student interests in biology. CPR is a Web‐based program that enables frequent writing assignments even in large classes with limited instructional resources. In fact, CPR can reduce the time an instructor spends reading and assessing student writing. This study examines improvements in student's ability to (1) identify the treatments in a biological experiment; (2) present a completely randomized design to address the research question of interest; (3) describe the benefit of limiting sources of variability; and (4) describe the limitations to the scope of inference for the biologist. Responses to an AP Statistics item used as a measure show that a series of CPR assignments produced a very high frequency of students with knowledge about use of experimental, quantitative, and statistical applications to a biological research question. Funded by NSF DUE/CCLI #0837229.