What’s the probability of that? Using SAFMEDS to increase undergraduate success with statistical concepts

Psychology undergraduates are required to study statistics as one of the main components of their degree, and for many this is the most challenging aspect of the curriculum. Undergraduates taking an introductory statistics module participated in this study. Based on the results from their first weekly open-book test, students scoring at the 50th percentile and below were identified and invited to sit a pre-test of questions selected to cover all the statistical content for the semester. Using the results from the pre-test we randomly allocated 55 participants to either a precision teaching SAFMEDS intervention (PT) (24 students) or a “treatment as usual” (TAU) group (31 students). We made SAFMEDS cards with key statistical concepts taken from the study guide of the main statistics textbook and students were instructed how to use the cards and how to chart their learning performance. Additionally participants were invited to attend bi-weekly meetings with student proctors to review individual progress and make instructional decisions. Results indicated that those students in the PT intervention maintained a higher score than the TAU for all of the weekly tests through the semester, and achieved a statistically significant gain in post-test performance almost equivalent to an entire degree class score when compared with the TAU group, F(1, 53) = 5.23, p = .026, d = 0.62.