Finally, some data...

Figure 1: Multiplicandos relevant questions, before and and after students participated in the program (p = 0.011).


Figure 2: Movie relevant questions, before and after students participated in the program. N for each column is approximately 15.

I've been meaning to put up some of the data we've been tracking for some time, but it always seems to get away from me. Above, you'll find the results from our first "round", which lasted three weeks, and concluded in November. The second round of seminars will be finishing today in Batey 82, and hopefully I'll be a bit more timely about getting that together.

First, a bit of scheduling background to better understand the above graphs. A typical session gets broken down like this:

Day 1: Show Tu Decides, a FEUL-produced film, hold small lecture to reinforce topics, question and answer session, and recruit young people for the remainder of the program.
Day 2: Before the small group lectures begin, administer test to assess participant knowledge on both film-oriented questions and Multiplicandos-oriented questions (Shown as "Before Program" above). Then, begin lectures, small group discussion, Q&A sessions about STDs, breastfeeding, condom use, etc.
Day 3: Continue with activities mentioned above, then review session with Q&A. Students conclude the program with a post-test that examines the same topics as before, but with different questions (Shown as "After Program" above). Finally, "graduation" from the Multiplicandos program.

As I mentioned before, there are two types of questions: those that address topics covered in the movie, and those that address topics covered in the Multiplicandos program. Ideally, we would see a jump from approximately 50% of the questions answers correctly (the questions are true/false style, making the null hypothesis 50% correct) to 100% mastery. Obviously, the improvement isn't perfect, but it is quite good. Students answered the Multiplicandos-relevant questions correctly 57% of the time before the program, and almost 90% correct after the program. Not bad at all.

The second figure shows questions addressing information in the film Tu Decides (Day 1). There is a slight (though not significant) improvement in correct responses (80% --> 90%). The bump can probably be attributed to the fact that some topics covered in the movie are also addressed in our course.

So, in response to a posted question, our tests don't exactly compare whether the film or multiplicandos style of teaching is better (since, strictly speaking, they address different topics). However, they do allow us to say whether Multiplicandos creates subject mastery at a level comparable to the film viewing session, despite the multiplicandos subject matter being considerably more difficult (it does).

A more carefully controlled experiment would test what the students know before even viewing the movie. Unfortunately, we don't know who will participate in the program before showing the film (which is used as a recruiting tool), and therefore cannot test their knowledge.

There are additional pedagogic questions that these result raise. This data doesn't tell us how effectively the information instilled in the newly-minted Multiplicadors is being disseminated to peers. Anecdotally, the Multiplicadors do indeed seem to be "multiplying the light" by sharing the information with their peer group. For example, we often find the number of people unofficially enrolling in the course grows throughout the second and third days as people tell their friends about the program.

I'm just about out of battery, but I'll try to post some recent pictures in the next few days. Happy Holidays!