Effects of simulation-based learning on students’ statistical factual, conceptual and application knowledge E. Novak School of Teacher Education, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky, USA Abstract The purpose of this study was to (1) examine the effects of a storyline on learners’ factual, conceptual and application knowledge with the use of a simulation for teaching introductory statistical skills and to (2) explore students’ subjective enjoyment of various learning activities often used in statistics education. In order to conduct the study, two versions of a simulation were developed that differed in the presence or absence of a storyline attribute. Sixty-four graduate students were randomly assigned to one of the two intervention conditions. Both intervention groups demonstrated significantly higher learning gains after interacting with the simulation. Particularly, both simulation-based interventions had a positive significant effect on the acquisition of application knowledge and skills. However, no significant differences between the intervention groups on any learning outcome explored in the study were found. Results also showed that students rated the simulation used in the study as a more enjoyable learning activity in comparison to reading a textbook, lecture or teamwork. Students from the simulation without a storyline intervention reported higher enjoyment than the other inter- vention group. Implications of the findings for understanding the instructional benefits and shortcomings of embedding a storyline in digital learning content are discussed. Keywords application knowledge, conceptual, factual, statistics simulation, storyline. Background Statistics is very often referred to as a problematic subject to learn, as it mainly focuses on abstract con- cepts that are difficult to grasp, particularly for students without a mathematical background (delMas, Garfield, & Chance, 1999; Lane & Tang, 2000; Mills, 2002; Oliver, Pisano, Alonso, & Roca, 2006). Statistics edu- cators have been constantly looking for new instruc- tional methods to improve students’ achievements. Many researchers have recommended computer simu- lation methods (CSMs) as an effective instructional strategy for teaching statistics concepts (Mills, 2002). Simulations can range from simple spreadsheets to an entire computer language (Ageel, 2002). There are several definitions of CSMs in the statistics training literature. For instance, CSMs may involve students writing their own programs (e.g., using SAS PROC IML) to set up and investigate a model for a problem. Conversely, students can be guided to use a random number generator command in Excel or MINITAB to generate the random samples and experiment with Accepted: 1 May 2013 Correspondence: Elena Novak, School of Teacher Education, Western Kentucky University, 1906 College Heights Blvd. #61030, Bowling Green, KY 421010-1030, USA. Email: elena.novak@ wku.edu doi: 10.1111/jcal.12027 Original article © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Journal of Computer Assisted Learning (2014), 30, 148–158 148