Outside the Norm: Using Public Ecology Database Information to Teach Biostatistics

Abstract

Biology students’ understanding of statistics is incomplete due to poor integration of these two disciplines. In some cases, students fail to learn statistics at the undergraduate level due to poor student interest and cursory teaching of concepts, highlighting a need for new and unique approaches to the teaching of statistics in the undergraduate biology curriculum. The most effective method of teaching statistics is to provide opportunities for students to apply concepts, not just learn facts. Opportunities to learn statistics also need to be prevalent throughout a student’s education to reinforce learning. The purpose of developing and implementing curriculum that integrates a topic in biology with an emphasis on statistical analysis was to improve students’ quantitative thinking skills. Our lesson focuses on the change in the richness of native species for a specified area with the aid of iNaturalist and the capacity for analysis afforded by Google Sheets. We emphasized the skills of data entry, storage, organization, curation and analysis. Students then had to report their findings, as well as discuss biases and other confounding factors. Pre-and post-lesson assessment revealed students’ quantitative thinking skills, as measured by a paired-samples t test, improved. At the end of the lesson, students had an increased understanding of basic statistical concepts, such as bias in research and making data-based claims, within the framework of biology.