An Active Learning In-Class Demonstration of Good Experimental Design

This article presents an active learning demonstration available on the Internet using Java applets to show a poorly designed experiment and then subsequently a well-designed experiment. The activity involves student participation and data collection. It demonstrates the concepts of randomization and blocking, as well as the need to carefully consider the objective of a study and how well the data collected answer the question of interest. The proposed exercise takes approximately 50 minutes of lecture time and helps to solidify these essential statistical concepts in a visual and memorable way. A variation of the activity could extend the presentation to 75 minutes. Students have reacted positively to the exercise.