Teaching Innovation Grant Proposal
Name: Emily Westover and Rachel Woodruff
Department: BCHM and BIOL
Project Title: Are Brandeis science students learning to analyze and interpret data?
1. What is your overall goal? What do you hope to accomplish?
The Brandeis University Learning Goals include the following two Core Skills: 1) Master
quantitative skills, which includes the ability to “collect, interpret and effectively utilize
numerical data and quantitative information” as well as the use of models to express causal
relationships; and 2) Exhibit strong critical thinking skills, which involves the ability to
analyze and interpret information. However, we do not currently have an assessment tool for
objective measurement of these skills.
We therefore seek to develop a content-independent assessment tool to measure students’
ability to interpret and represent data in a variety of formats. Our assessment tool should
measure both skills (such as basic mathematical and graph-reading skills) and
attitudes/perceptions (such as confidence in their own analytic abilities).
We seek to measure skills including the following: Students should be able to identify variables,
describe relationships among variables, describe a pattern in the data, identify deviations from a
pattern, make predictions for unknown values based on patterns in the data, and propose
explanations or hypotheses consistent with the data.
2. What will you do in order to accomplish your goal?
We will develop a questionnaire to assess student attitudes and perceptions relating to their
ability to understand and interpret data.
We will develop a multiple-choice, objective assessment of student skills with data
interpretation and representation.
a) We will begin with a review the literature to develop a comprehensive list of student challenges
for analyzing and interpreting data. We will then design questions focused on these challenges
and any others we see in our own classes. We will also ask other faculty for input.
b) We will write questions intended to test analytical skills independent of the course
content. Initially, we will develop open-ended questions and then conduct interviews with
students at a variety of levels in order to develop multiple choice options that will address
common student challenges.
c) Pilot versions of the multiple-choice assessment test will then be administered to students in
BIOL14 and BIOL101 in the fall of 2015 to help us eliminate jargon and optimize the wording of
questions and distractors (incorrect choices). A smaller number of students will be interviewed
about their responses and reasoning, to help us to optimize questions.
d) After analyzing responses to the pilot study, we will revise the assessment.
3. How will you assess the effectiveness of your project? (All projects are required to have an
evaluation built into the plan.)
We will validate the questionnaire and objective assessment through student interviews, expert
(faculty) reviews, and statistical analysis for attributes such as item difficulty, item
discrimination, and reliability.
We ultimately plan to administer the assessment tool in subsequent semesters in BIOL14 and
BCHM100 to measure how student attitudes and skills change over the course of a semester.
4. Which students will benefit? How will this benefit their learning or overall success?
By participating in the development of this assessment tool (by taking the pilot assessment),
students in our classes (approximately 400 students in the Fall Semester) will benefit from the
opportunity to reflect on their ability to analyze and interpret data through the surveys and skills
assessment.
In subsequent semesters, the assessment tool will be used to measure the effectiveness of a
variety of teaching methods designed to help students improve their ability to analyze and
interpret data. This will allow us to improve course design, potentially affecting a large number
of students.
5. If you are proposing an interdisciplinary course, please list the name of the faculty with whom
you will be working, along with their department.
N/A
6. What is the timetable for your project?
Start date: June 2015
End date: May 2016
7. What type of support staff will you require? (multi-media developer, editor, evaluator,
instructional designer, etc.)
Research assistant (potentially a social science graduate student) to assist with survey design and
validation, and with validation of skills assessment.
8. How might your project be replicated in other areas of the University or elsewhere in higher
education?
This assessment and attitude survey may be adopted in a number of science classes and
potentially could be used to measure student progress in developing these Core Skills over
multiple years at Brandeis.
9. A requirement of this funding is that you share the results of your project with the Brandeis
community. How and when will you do this?
We will share the results of our study through a CTL workshop in April 2016.
10. Please provide itemized budget information here, detailing how much money you are requesting
and how will you use it.
Stipend for EW for summer work on the project………….
Stipend for RW for summer work on the project……….....
Research assistant stipend …..……….…………...…….….$2,500
Student validation interviewees….……………….…..…......$150
TOTAL………………………………………………….…$