Evaluation of an Interactive Tutorial for Teaching the Central Limit Theorem

Abstract

In this article, we present an evaluation of a Web-based, interactive tutorial used to present the sampling distribution of the mean. The tutorial allows students to draw samples and explore the shapes of sampling distributions for several sample sizes. To evaluate the effectiveness of the tutorial, 111 students enrolled in statistics or research methods courses used either the interactive tutorial or attended a lecture and a demonstration on the sampling distribution of the mean. Students in both groups improved from pretest to posttest and no statistically significant differences between improvement scores were found between groups. Additionally, students rated the tutorial as easy to use and understand. In this study, we provide evidence that an Internet tutorial can be comparable in effectiveness to standard lecture or demonstration techniques.