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To help assess student learning in her developmental math courses, a mathematics professor at a community college implemented pre- and posttests for her developmental math students. A knowledge-gained score was obtained by taking the difference of the two test scores. (a) What type of experimental design is this? (b) What is the response variable in this experiment? (c) What is the treatment?

Short Answer

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(a) Pretest-posttest design, (b) Knowledge-gained score, (c) Developmental math course.

Step by step solution

01

Identifying the Experimental Design

This design involves comparing the same group of students' performance before and after an intervention (the math course). This type of design is often referred to as a 'before-and-after' or 'pretest-posttest' design.
02

Determining the Response Variable

The response variable is the outcome that the experimenter measures. In this case, it is the knowledge-gained score, which is calculated by taking the difference between the posttest and pretest scores.
03

Identifying the Treatment

The treatment in this experiment is the developmental math course itself, which is the intervention applied to see its effect on students' knowledge.

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Key Concepts

These are the key concepts you need to understand to accurately answer the question.

Pretest-Posttest Design
In educational research, a pretest-posttest design is a popular method to measure changes brought by an intervention. This design compares results from before and after the intervention. For example, in the exercise about the developmental math course, students are tested at the beginning (pretest) and then after completing the course (posttest).

By analyzing the difference between pretest and posttest scores, researchers can determine if the intervention (the math course) was effective. The main advantage of this design is that it uses the same group of individuals, which helps control for variations among different participants.
Response Variable
The response variable in an experiment is the primary outcome that researchers measure to assess the effects of the treatment. In the given exercise, the response variable is the knowledge-gained score.

To compute this, the professor subtracts the pretest score from the posttest score for each student. This score indicates how much knowledge students have gained through the math course. Analyzing this response variable helps in understanding the effectiveness of the intervention.
Educational Intervention
An educational intervention is any program or strategy implemented with the aim of improving learning outcomes. In the example provided, the developmental math course acts as the intervention.

Such interventions can vary widely, including new teaching methods, curriculum changes, or additional resources. The goal is to observe whether these interventions lead to better results, as indicated by the response variable (knowledge-gained score in this case). Evaluating the impact of educational interventions is crucial for enhancing teaching practices and student achievement.

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Most popular questions from this chapter

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