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Hybrid class yields higher GPAs in statistics, but leaves students unsatisfied

For many Miami University students, college is their first experience with learning in non-traditional classroom settings, which can take time to adjust to. College also marks some students' first time taking higher-level math courses, like statistics.

When signing up to take STA 261 -- Miami's introductory statistics course that fulfills the Global Miami Plan Formal Reasoning requirement -- the only option students have is to enroll in a hybrid class.

A hybrid course combines a standard lecture and online course into a singular learning experience. For STA 261, the hybrid model is combined with the inverted class model, meaning all new information is introduced in video lectures outside the classroom. The two class meetings a week are devoted to reviewing topics and small group lab activities.

Senior lecturer and STA 261 course coordinator Lynette Hudiburgh, who began teaching at Miami in 2011, first utilized the hybrid model in her STA 261 classroom in fall 2013.

"Back in 2013, I piloted the first hybrid course in my department, and we saw huge student gains," Hudiburgh said. "Not only in understanding, but retention, and also our DWF rate decreased."

The DWF rate refers to the number of students who receive D's, F's, or withdraw (W) from the class.

After Hudiburgh had used the hybrid model in her own classes for an entire school year and observed its effect on students, the statistics department decided to implement the hybrid model to all 25 sections of STA 261, she said.

From 2009 to 2013, the average GPA for all students who completed STA 261 was 2.69. After implementing the hybrid model course-wide in 2014, the average GPA increased to 2.81.

While the average GPA for the course has increased, the student response is mixed.

"It's bimodal," Hudiburgh said. "You have some students who really love it... But then you also have those other students who -- this is their first time they have had a non-typical lecture, and they're not quite sure, so they fight it."

First-year political science and psychology double-major Tim Binnig finds STA 261 to be somewhat of a challenge. He took a hybrid health class in high school, but this semester is Binnig's first experience learning a new subject through the hybrid format.

"There wasn't as much learning [in the health class]. We would have to do outside of class ... It was a little bit less intensive compared to a math-based course," Binnig said. "In a math-based class like stats, you want to be able to ask the professor questions like 'How does this work?,' 'Can you explain this further?,' but with stats, it's just the videos."

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Binnig acknowledged that learning a new subject with the inverted hybrid method has both advantages and disadvantages.

"The videos that are there are a little bit more helpful because they are trying to explain each aspect that's in the book, but then that can only go so far," Binnig said. "It works to a point, and then you're still not fully mastering the topic ... You can't ask questions on the material when its fresh in your mind."

But the increased difficulty of hybrid courses can be an opportunity for learning, Hudiburgh said.

"It's so much easier to just sit in a lecture hall and have somebody talk at you instead of having to engage with the material and do things and apply things," Hudiburgh said. "But that's the reason why the learning is deeper in this kind of a model."

Adjusting to a hybrid course can be difficult, but she also knows that appeasing everyone is impossible.

"Unfortunately we can't please everyone. So, you have to go to the research and you have to say, 'What is best for students?'"

carlintm@miamioh.edu

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