The paper "" is currently making the
rounds:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5604013/
The Carpentries have a considered response to it:
http://www.datacarpentry.org/blog/reponse-to-null-effects/
Several of the details about the study data struck me. The
sample size of workshop participants was 48 among 294 PhD
students across 53 institutions. One of the Carpentries
concerns was that it is hard to know what workshops these
students attended and how the material was reinforced in
their regular courses. We at UF have an n of similar size to
this study at one institution and we know positively (we can
get access to course history and transcripts w/ appropriate
IRB) what has happened to our learners. We further have
Ethan's semester course which is a direct extension of the
Carpentries workshop so we could consider 4 populations: no
intervention, workshop, workshop + course, course. There are
other courses too that we might consider like ones from
stats that teach a little R and Gitzendaner's BIO course as
well as other activities like DSI or ACM participation.
I've started trying to reach out to Academic Advising to see
if they can get us some help designing a study of this
stuff. Does anyone have a strong motivation to pursue this
next semester or know someone who would?
Matthew Collins
Technical Operations Manager
Advanced Computing and Information Systems Lab, ECE
University of Florida
352-392-5414