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Statistics & Research Methods
Because students rarely hand-calculate statistics once they complete these courses, taking
a more conceptual approach will likely get them to think critically about the course
material they encounter in their statistics and research methods courses.
Using Alternative Teaching Methods
Another potential way to increase the likelihood that your students will think critically
about course material is to use alternative teaching methods that force students to examine
the material in a fashion that deviates from more traditional teaching methods. Although
there are numerous alternative teaching methods that statistics and research methods
instructors can use in their classrooms, the following methods seems especially promising
in their ability to promote enhanced learning as well as critical thinking.
Interteaching. Interteaching is a new method of classroom instruction that has its roots
in B. F. Skinner’s operant psychology (Boyce & Hineline, 2002). Although earlier
behavioral teaching methods (e.g., Keller, 1968), which focused on modifying the teaching
environment and increasing reinforcement for desired behaviors, have produced outcomes
superior to more traditional methods of instruction, college and university instructors have
failed to adopt these methods for a number of reasons (see Buskist, Cush, & DeGrandpre,
1991). Interteaching is based on the same tenets as earlier behavioral teaching methods
but is more amenable to classroom adoption. In essence, interteaching entails a “mutually
probing, mutually informing conversation between two people” (Boyce & Hineline, 2002,
p. 220) that allows both students and teacher continually to interact with one another and
reinforce some of the behaviors that teachers hope to see in their students (e.g., discussion
of course material, asking questions when material is confusing). Because others have
described interteaching in more detail elsewhere (see Barron, Benedict, Saville, Serdikoff,
& Zinn, 2007; Boyce & Hineline, 2002; Saville, Zinn, Neef, Van Norman, & Ferreri,
2006), we will not discuss the particulars of the method here. Instead, we will focus on
how the use of interteaching seems to have a positive effect on critical thinking.
Although interteaching is relatively new, a mounting number of studies suggest that it
may lead to higher exam scores than more traditional methods of classroom instruction
(see Barron et al., 2007; Saville, Zinn, & Elliott, 2005; Saville et al., 2006). In addition,
evidence from our classrooms suggests that interteaching may lead to increases in the
behaviors associated with critical thinking. Saville and Zinn conducted a study in which
they alternated interteaching and lecture several times throughout the course of a semes-
ter. To provide partial controls for possible confounds, they counterbalanced the order of
teaching method across two sections of an undergraduate research methods course (i.e.,
one class participated in interteaching while the other class heard a lecture over the same
material; see Saville et al., 2006, Study 2, for a description of this method). At the end of
the semester, students completed Ferrett’s (1997) “attributes of a critical thinker”
inventory, which asks respondents to self-report how often they engaged in certain
behaviors that are associated with critical thinking (e.g., asks relevant questions, admits
lack of understanding, changes one’s mind when learning new facts). Specifically, students
reported whether they were more likely to engage in each of these behaviors with
interteaching or with lecture.