I propose to spend the 1998 Summer Semester creating a series of interactive web pages that will allow my physiology lab students to work through the process of computer data acquisition, statistical analysis, and graphing at their own pace and on their own time. The Web pages will not tell the students what to do, as much as give them choices, ask them what they think they should do, show the results of their choices, and then ask questions to help them decide if their choice was appropriate. With the Web pages, students will not only be able to run statistics and graph results, but also to understand the process and make appropriate choices from the bewildering array of options available in data manipulation software.
Problem:
Commonly, in Physiology and many other lab courses, undergraduate students learn how to collect data, analyze it and plot it in large groups of students (16-20) huddled around a small number of computers (3-4) in a demonstration format. They are then turned loose with data in following lab exercises and expected to make the appropriate decisions about how to best analyze and graph new data sets. The results are often unsatisfactory. This is the situation at Birmingham-Southern College.
Goal:
The goal of this project is to teach students to collect data, analyze them, and graph them in an interactive format that will give them experience in making choices about the best ways to analyze and present data. In future courses and postgraduate work they will be able to apply critical thinking skills to the complex task of analyzing and presenting research data.
Potential Impact and Significance:
All of our students will be affected by scientific research, whether as practitioners or passive consumers of the results of research. The analysis and presentation of data are central to research. This project will give our students a solid basis for the analysis and presentation of their own data as well as the ability to judge the quality of analysis and presentation of others' data.
Procedure and Methods:
Birmingham-Southern College recently purchased electronic equipment including 8 impedance converters, 4 Narco Physiograph Recorders with associated transducers and 4 Sable Systems Computer Data Acquisition units for the Physiology teaching labs. With this technology the labs have taken a great step forward and we now provide our students experience with the types of equipment that they might see in graduate or professional school.
The impedance converters, physiographs and computer data acquisition units have been in use for one semester and they enable students to make physiological measurements such as heart rate, EKG, ventilation rate etc. and record them directly on a computer hard drive. Once the data are collected they can be manipulated with the Sable Systems hardware, but they cannot be statistically analyzed or graphed until they are imported into a spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel.
Currently I have to show the students how to import data from the Sable Systems into Microsoft Excel and once they are in Excel how to plot and analyze their data. This is very time consuming and can be done well with only one or two students at a time. Since I have 50-60 students, divided over 3 lab sections, in Physiology every spring this has not proven satisfactory. An additional problem is that once the students have been oriented and are allowed to work on their own, they have to rely on help screens in Sable Systems and Microsoft Excel. I have found the help screens for both applications to be not very useful, and I am an experienced user.
In addition the help screens, at their best, tell the students how to do something, but not why or what to do.
I propose to create a series of Web pages that will interactively take students through the necessary steps of collecting, importing, analyzing and plotting their data for one lab exercise - Effects of Exercise on Cardiovascular Physiology. I plan to use these pages to guide them through these processes by asking them questions and giving them choices and explanations whenever possible. For example, when they are ready to plot their figure, they will face a screen that asks them which variable belongs on the x-axis and which on the y-axis. There will be a link to a page that explains the difference between dependent and independent variables. Once they have selected x and y variables they will be asked whether they want to use a log scale or not. This question will be linked to an explanation of the appropriate times to use log scales. Once they make a selection, they will face a page that explains how to select their scales. The technical requirements for this project are the computer data acquisition units that the college has purchased, the Pentium computer that the college provides for me and the campus network.
Faculty Expertise:
I have written several handouts on data analysis and plotting and used them as I taught physiology labs emphasizing data collection, analysis and graphing over the last 10 years. Last year at the Faculty Development Consortium - Instructional Technology Conference, I led a workshop on the use of computer data acquisition systems in physiology labs. Although I have learned enough HTML to make my own personal web page (with help) I will have to become more adept at HTML and web page design to carry out this project. Birmingham-Southern College provides HTML workshops for faculty and staff. I have attended an introductory workshop and plan to attend a more advanced workshop later this year. The administration has made available a talented BSC student as an HTML consultant and he will assist me. I have used Sable Systems computer data acquisition units for several years as a postdoctoral researcher and in teaching my labs.
Dissemination and Evaluation:
The success of this project will be evaluated rigorously. I teach multiple lab sections of Physiology every spring. Once the interactive web pages are created, I will employ them in half of the Physiology lab sections in the spring of 1999 and 2000. All of the Physiology students will take a brief test on their understanding of the principles of data analysis and plotting before and after the lab exercise that introduces them to the topic. Their attitudes towards data analysis and plotting will also be surveyed.
The design, use and results of the interactive Web pages are intended to be presented at the annual Faculty Development Consortium - Instruction Technology Conference, at which I have presented the past 2 years. Because the Interactive Web pages will be on the College's Web Site they will be available to all ACS schools. If this proposal is funded I will be contacting colleagues at several ACS schools to see if they would like to participate in using the Interactive Web Pages in their Physiology labs and comparing results to lab sections where they are not used.