Using an Online Learning Environment to Teach an Undergraduate Statistics Course: the tutor-web

TL;DR

The paper introduces the tutor-web, an open-source online learning environment for teaching statistics, which was tested in a university course through a randomized trial to evaluate its effectiveness.

Contribution

It presents a new open-source online educational platform for statistics and mathematics, integrating interactive quizzes and linking teaching materials.

Findings

No significant difference in learning outcomes between traditional homework and tutor-web use.

The system is accessible, free, and licensed under Creative Commons.

It has been successfully used in a university course for educational research.

Abstract

A learning environment, the tutor-web (http://tutor-web.net), has been developed and used for educational research. The system is accessible and free to use for anyone having access to the Web. It is based on open source software and the teaching material is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. The system has been used for computer-assisted education in statistics and mathematics. It offers a unique way to structure and link together teaching material and includes interactive quizzes with the primary purpose of increasing learning rather than mere evaluation. The system was used in a course on basic statistics in the University of Iceland, spring 2013. A randomized trial was conducted to investigate the difference in learning between students doing regular homework and students using the system. The difference between the groups was not found to be significant.