Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

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with the real data when the corresponding data is available in the web, using also the
hypothesis testing methods presented in the Module 4 of the Laboratory.
This also allows using up-to-date data sets, reflecting the current economical situation,
each time the Decision-Making Laboratory is imparted, which will contribute to increase
the student interest in the laboratory.
Use of the Laboratory tools to evaluate Laboratory quality
measures
In order to show the students the wide scope of the statistical techniques presented in the
laboratory, and to apply them to some other problem not taken from the economic world.
We propose the use of the same statistical tools learned in the course in order to analyze
and compare the results presented by the students. That is to say, if the numeric results
from different students or student groups are very sparse, this fact perhaps indicates a
poor work definition by the teacher. If the results obtained are very homogeneous but are
far from the real world results, this perhaps indicates a common basic problema in the
presentation of the theory and the laboratory work to the students. This is an important
point, since the students use the tools used in the laboratory to evaluate the performance
of their laboratory results, and to propose improvements, which is a clear motivation
point.
The statistical tools presented may also be used to compare some measurements taken
from the students when they perform the old version of the laboratory problems and the
new ones, the first course when the new version of the laboratory is used, converting this
in a new additional module (Module 7) of the laboratory.
To be specific, let us suppose that two different versions of the Estimation Theory module
(the old version and the new version) are followed by two different set of student groups.
The students measure the time they employ in solving that module and set a score related
to some qualitative measure of the self-learning and satisfaction encountered with each
module.
The last Module (new Module 7 of the Laboratory) will consist on the realizing a statistical
test to evaluate if there are substantial differences in the times employed in following the
exercises of the modules, and the qualitative self-learning and satisfaction measurement.
Two possible statistical test to be employed are (Hogg & Tanis (2001)), (Newbold, Carlson
& Thorne, (2008)), (Samuels, Witmer & Schaffner, (2011)):
1. Sign test.
2. Mann-Whitney test.
We consider, as an example, the use of the sign test.
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011