Engaging Students with Biostatistics by Conducting Clinical Trials on the Island

• Activity Number: 327
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 5, 2014 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Teaching of Statistics in the Health Sciences
• Author(s): Ann M. Brearley*+ and Susan Telke
• Companies: University of Minnesota and University of Minnesota
• Keywords: biostatistics ; clinical trials ; statistics education ; online education ; statistical literacy

Abstract

We have used Michael Bulmer's virtual Island for two years: in an introductory biostatistics course (in-person and online), in an online clinical trials course, and in our Summer Institute in Biostatistics (SIBS). It is a valuable, effective and fun teaching tool. Our students work in teams to choose a scientific question that interests them, and then design and carry out a randomized, controlled study on the Island to address it. They recruit participants, administer treatments, collect data, analyze it, and write up the results. At the end of the course, each team presents their results to the class. In the clinical trials course, each team also acts as a mock Institutional Review Board for another team's study protocol. With the Island project, students apply what they have learned to a "real" study and develop a deeper appreciation for the challenges involved in carrying out medical and public health research studies. Instructors discover concepts that are giving students difficulty, such as the distinction between random sampling and random assignment. We are expanding our use of the Island to courses in biostatistical literacy and statistical consulting.