DECISION TREE FOR PLANNING ACTION RESEARCH

Decide on an MBE strategy you want to investigate. Then decide what your outcome measure will be. In all the research plans in this decision tree, one group will receive your MBE intervention (=MBE) and one group will receive 'treatment as usual'/'teaching as usual' (=TAU).

Created by Beth Morling, University of Delaware, Kristin Gagnier, Johns Hopkins University, and Ian Kelleher (CTTL).

1. Decision 1: Do you teach 2 sections of the same course?

2. Decision 2: How are students assigned to the 2 sections?

Consider Research Plan 1: Flip a coin to decide which section will get the MBE intervention and which gets 'treatment as usual' (TAU). Proceed with the two different teaching plans and measure the outcomes. Compare the outcomes of the class that gets the MBE intervention with the class that gets the treatment as usual (TAU).

Your final data may look like this:

Would you like to see a different research plan option?

2. Consider Research Plan 2: Pick only one section at random to get the MBE intervention and one to get the treatment as usual (TAU). Pretest all the students with your measurement tool before the unit. Proceed with the two different teaching plans and then give the posttest using the same measurement tool. For both the MBE section and the TAU section, compare their posttest scores to their pretest scores. To analyze the effectiveness of your intervention, compare the change for the MBE section to the change for the TAU section.

Your final data may look like this:

Would you like to see a different option?

Alternatively, consider Research Plan 2: Pick only one section at random to get the MBE intervention and one to get the treatment as usual (TAU). Pretest all the students with your measurement tool before the unit. Proceed with the two different teaching plans and then give the posttest using the same measurement tool. For both the MBE section and the TAU section, compare their posttest scores to their pretest scores. To analyze the effectiveness of your intervention, compare the change for the MBE section to the change for the TAU section.

Your final data may look like this:

2. Decision 2: Does it make sense to randomly assign half of your students to do the MBE intervention and half to do treatment as usual (TAU)?

Consider Research Plan 4: Use the MBE intervention with some units and treatment as usual (TAU) with other units throughout the year. Ideally you would randomly select which units get the MBE intervention and which get treatment as usual (for example, by going through your syllabus unit by unit and tossing a coin). Depending on your course, though, we realize that this might not be possible. You may have to choose a selection of your units and do the random coin-toss assigning on just those. Or, as a last resort, choose which get the MBE and which get TAU.

Your data may look like this:

Consider Research Plan 3: Flip a coin to assign each student to either have the MBE intervention or have treatment as usual (TAU). Proceed with these two different plans (some students doing the MBE intervention while some do the TAU) and then measure all students' learning afterwards. Compare those students who received the MBE intervention to those who received TAU. If you are concerned that some students are getting the MBE intervention and some are not, you can always switch groups for a later unit or project: the students who previously got TAU now get MBE, and vice versa.

Your final data may look like this:

Consider Research Plan 5: Alternate, unit by unit, which section gets the MBE intervention and which gets treatment as usual (TAU). Take measurements for both sections for every unit. If the MBE intervention is working, then the section that got the MBE intervention on that unit will score 'higher' than the section that got TAU. So, when you look at your results you should see your two sections keep trading places -which is higher, which is lower- from unit to unit.

Your final data may look like this: