A comparison of two teaching methods in Mathematical Statistics

Although tape-slide teaching has been available for twenty years, there have been few well-controlled studies of its effectiveness in higher education. In a three-year research project at the University of Exeter, a series of tape-slides was produced for a pilot comparison with the lecture method in the first year; in the second year, an updated version of the tape-slide sequences was used in a main trial comparison. The teaching trials carried out were of a balanced design, involving variables such as course of study, age, sex, previous knowledge of statistics and tape-slides and tutor, and existing methods of assessment were mainly used. Results indicate no observable academic differences between the groups taught by each method. The economics of the two methods are found to be comparable.