Frequently Asked questions

The page provides answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), tailored for researchers interested in using CourseKata data. Our FAQ addresses common queries and concerns regarding data availability, support services, student consent procedures, Institutional Review Board (IRB) considerations, citation guidelines, and project management using CourseKata data.

What data is available?

CourseKata provides access to a growing number of students who are engaged in real high school and university level statistics and data science courses. Students provide extensive longitudinal data (either semester or year-long courses) including survey questions, formative assessment questions, coding exercises, etc. The CourseKata platform currently primarily supports secondary data analysis projects, in which researchers analyze existing data from our growing database of students and teachers using the online materials. As a research member of the CourseKata community, you have access to all data from completed courses. For more information on how to access and download data, check out our download data page.

What support can I expect?

Support for CourseKata Researchers will be provided free of charge to researchers who do not have grant funding. Researchers with grant funding will be expected to contribute to support CourseKata’s research infrastructure (dependent on the level of funding and type of research).

Services provided to researchers include:

• access to all CourseKata student data (de-identified)
• access to CourseKata research documentation (e.g., codebooks, etc)
• access to and help using CourseKata’s experiments platform
• help in arranging instructor-researcher partnerships
• data matching and merging services (e.g., preserving confidentiality)

Do students consent to having their data collected?

CourseKata data only includes data of students who consented to having their de-identified data shared with researchers working to improve this course. Students are aware that their de-identified responses to questions throughout the CourseKata textbook would be analyzed for the purpose of improving the materials and course. At any time, students are able to indicate that they wished for their data to be excluded. Only data from students who did not indicate that they wish their data was excluded is available.

What about IRB?

You will need to go through your institution’s normal IRB processes, whatever they are. If you want advice on this, or if you’d like copies of previously successful IRB applications, contact the CourseKata Core Team and we can help. For secondary data analysis, which uses only de-identified data, the process is typically quick and easy. For answers to questions commonly asked on IRB applications, please view common questions in IRB applications (PDF, 64KB).

How do I cite work based on CourseKata data?

While we provide all of our data free to researchers, we expect in return to be credited as the source of the data in any resulting research reports, publications, and conference presentations. This could be done in the methods or introduction section of a report, or wherever the data are described. In addition, researchers using CourseKata data agree to send copies of all reports, conference presentations, and publications to CourseKata at research@coursekata.org.

Example Citations (feel free to copy and paste!)

Participants used an online interactive statistics and data science textbook developed by CourseKata (https://coursekata.org; Son & Stigler, 2017-2023). [update 2023 to current year]

The version of the textbook used in this study has twelve chapters and covers material typically covered in an introductory statistics course (https://coursekata.org; Son & Stigler, 2017-2023).

The book emphasizes the concept of statistical modeling as a means of making the content more coherent for students and instructors (Son et al., 2021), and is based on a pedagogical approach referred to as practicing connections (Fries et al., 2021).

The CourseKata materials were developed as part of a larger project (the Better Book project) that is exploring new ways of using research to improve teaching, learning, and curriculum development (Stigler et al. 2020).

All data presented here were collected and shared with the authors by CourseKata (https://coursekata.org).

References (in APA format)

Fries, L., Son, J. Y., Givvin, K. B., & Stigler, J. W. (2021). Practicing connections: A framework to guide instructional design for developing understanding in complex domains. Educational Psychology Review, 33(2), 739-762.

Son, J.Y. & Stigler, J.W. (2017-2023). Statistics and data science: A modeling approach. Los Angeles: CourseKata, https://coursekata.org/preview/default/program. Currently available in 5 versions.

Son, J. Y., Blake, A. B., Fries, L., & Stigler, J. W. (2021). Modeling first: Applying learning science to the teaching of introductory statistics. Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education, 29(1), 4-21.

Stigler, J. W., Son, J. Y., Givvin, K. B., Blake, A. B., Fries, L., Shaw, S. T., & Tucker, M. C. (2020). The Better Book approach for education research and development. Teachers College Record, 122(9), 1-32.

How can I manage and monitor my research using CourseKata Data?

If you are conducting research using CourseKata Data, we highly recommend utilizing the Open Science Framework (OSF) as a comprehensive tool to effectively manage and monitor your project.

To create a project on OSF, you can follow the instructions provided by OSF.

For an illustrative example of a CourseKata Data based project, check out this CourseKata Project Example. It showcases how OSF can be utilized to structure and present research findings based on CourseKata data.