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Applied Experimental Design & Statistical Analysis In a Real-World National Intervention In Community Colleges* (302554)

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Keywords: sampling, research ethics, intervention, community colleges, evaluation, Solomon Four-Group Experimental Design, data cleaning, data management, confirmatory factor analysis, mixed-design ANOVA, neuroscience, validity

The real-world problem was how to plan and evaluate a national intervention to promote hands-on neuroscience investigation activities in the science curriculum of community colleges (CC).

The poster will present practical “how-to” tips on how to use a Solomon Four-Group Design to think critically about and limit potential threats to internal validity and external validity. The example is from the evaluation research component of a National Science Foundation funded intervention designed to (1) increase CC faculty comfort in introducing neuroscience in the introductory psychology course, and (2) increase CC student confidence in learning neuroscience.

The project involved a large data set from 52 community colleges in 27 states including faculty and student control groups, a sample of 1745 students, and repeated assessment over time.

The poster will summarize the logic, procedure, management of a large data set among a national team, and the statistically significant results from confirmatory factor analysis and analyses of variance to test hypotheses regarding a priori factors related to the highly successful national intervention. * NSF Grant DUE-0618573