Making statistics meaningful: the merits of a competence-based approach

Abstract

The rather poor students’ performances and the reluctance of students to attend courses were the motives for a project that entails the redesign of conventional statistics courses, into courses designed according to the characteristics of a competence-based approach that integrates research methods, statistics and psychology subjects into holistic authentic tasks throughout the psychology curriculum. This paper presents the findings of the first redesigned course. The competence-based course resulted, compared to the conventional course, into higher students’ performance and higher scores on learning competences, attitudes and motivation.