Developing and Implementing a Statistics Curriculum for Pre-Clinical Scientists at a Free-Standing Cancer Center

• Activity Number: 48 - Addressing Challenges in Teaching Statistics in the Health Sciences
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 3, 2020 : 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Teaching of Statistics in the Health Sciences
• Author(s): Sujata M Patil* and Axel Martin and Ushma M Neill and Jaya Satagopan
• Companies: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Rutgers University School of Public Health
• Keywords: Teaching statistics; biomedical sciences; reproducible research; curriculum evaluation

Abstract

Irreproducible results and failure to translate preclinical results to successful drug development are pivotal concerns in today’s cancer laboratory research. Factors responsible for this include misuse of statistical designs and analysis. Therefore, we developed a statistics curriculum for preclinical cancer researchers that includes didactic lectures with hands-on activities using computer-based apps.

We divided the statistical topics into eight lectures consisting of two modules - experimental design and data analysis. To make learning more engaging and topically relevant, we developed hands-on activities using the Shiny package in the R. In this talk, we will describe the steps used to assess institutional needs and the approach we took to develop and evaluate the course. We will provide details on the two evaluations used to assess the effectiveness of our curriculum and present results.

This course has been taught since 2017. By providing didactic lectures and engagement through hands-on activities delivered via R Shiny apps, our course has potential for inspiring robust experimental design and data analysis in pre-clinical cancer research.