Development of a Project-Based Statistics Course for Applied Biostatistics Using Stata

Project-based learning is an instructional approach that is designed to build students skills and offer real-world activities, such as defining a research question and using nationally representative data to find an answer (Dierker et al., 2012). The purpose of this presentation is to describe an innovative, project-based statistics course for applied biostatistics using Stata. The semester-long course is designed as a graduate-level introductory biostatistics course; however, it could easily be adapted for use in an undergraduate public health program. The course combines two textbooks (Acock 2014; Bush, 2012) and traditional lecture and assessment with computer lab activities and a research project. The project-based course structure offers students the opportunity to directly apply course content to their unique research question, with the intent to increase students’ motivation and interest in statistics. Each student’s culminating experience is a 15-minute presentation or poster that explains their research and results to classmates or an alternative audience. Course evaluation data demonstrate that students rate the course as excellent, and students strongly agree the course encourages learning. A course syllabus, lab activities, Stata do-files, and a description of the research project and final presentation will be available upon request.