Using the EDA to teach
The Experimental Design Assistant (EDA) is a tool to help researchers improve the rigour of animal experiments, it can also be embedded in training for researchers and in undergraduate teaching.
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Teaching undergraduates
Experimental design is crucial to give undergraduates a solid foundation enabling them to critically assess the scientific papers they read, but it can be difficult to teach. Many students find the topic dry and making the content interactive can be a challenge. This is where the EDA can help.
The EDA provides a visual overview of the experiment and an interactive platform that students can work on independently, for example to identify specific flaws within a given experimental plan, or to design the experiments they will go on to perform in a practical laboratory class. The feedback students get from the EDA helps them learn experimental design principles. Outputs from the EDA, such as the Experimental Design Report, can be used to help assess student understanding of experimental design concepts.
Dr Becky Trueman and Professor Gareth Hathway have incorporated the EDA into undergraduate teaching at the University of Nottingham.
In a survey over 80% of students said that the EDA helped them to develop a better understanding of the importance of sample size, of where to consider blinding and randomisation, of what an experimental unit is, of what their factors, dependent and independent variables were, and why different statistical tests are used for different study designs.
Read the NC3Rs blog to find out what they did, and how you could do something similar.
UKRN EDA train-the-trainers workshop
Our train-the-trainer sessions provide attendees with in-depth knowledge of the EDA to enable them to:
- Promote the EDA to colleagues and collaborators and to support them getting started with the system.
- Integrate the EDA into teaching and training, for example tutors running experimental design courses for undergraduate students.
- Utilise the EDA to capture a complete description of the experimental plan when providing statistical support for researchers.
The NC3Rs and the UK Reproducibility Network are offering an online one-day training workshop on how to use, and teach others to use the EDA. This session is open to researchers at UKRN Open Research partner institutions.
