International Journal on New Trends in Education and Their Implications April 2015 Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Article: 13 ISSN 1309-6249 Copyright © International Journal on New Trends in Education and Their Implications / www.ijonte.org 157 TEACHING VARIANCE AND DEGREE OF FREEDOM THROUGH COMPUTER-ASSISTED INSTRUCTION Assoc. Prof. Dr. Serkan PERKMEN Balıkesir University Necatibey Faculty of Education TURKEY Yeşim SÜRMELIOĞLU Balıkesir University Necatibey Faculty of Education TURKEY ABSTRACT The principle objective of the current study is to teach variance and degree of freedom by means of computer- assisted instruction. Variance is regarded as one of the most important topics to learn, degree of freedom is a concept considered as one of the most difficult concepts to teach and learn. The preliminary results on 15 faculty members showed that they had limited knowledge related to these concepts. Based on this need analysis, we developed a video tutorial to teach these concepts using Flash and Camtasia Studio software. We also considered visual design and instruction principles when developing the tutorial. The tutorial is made up of three parts: population variance, degree of freedom and sample variance. The effectiveness of our tutorial was tested on these 15 faculty members. The findings revealed substantial improvement in their knowledge about these two concepts. They were very satisfied with the tutorial and gave us valuable insight into what can be done to promote the instructional value of our tutorial. We strongly believe that the video tutorial we developed has a great potential to help learners of statistics to grasp these concepts. Key Words: Variance, degree of freedom, statistics learning, computer-assisted instruction. INTRODUCTION Multimedia can be defined as the presentation of knowledge as a combination of words and figures (e.g. video). Research studies showed the positive effects of multimedia on learning (Mayer, 2007). For example, Plasschaert, Cailleteau, Ernie (1997) found the positive effects of multimedia interactive tutorial on learning endodontic problem-solving in the field of medicine. Lloyd and Robertson (2012) examined the role of screencast tutorials on enhancing student learning of statistics. Screencasting can be defined as capturing what is done on the computer screen with synched audio commentary (Udell, 2004). These researchers found that after controlling for previous math experience, math and computer anxiety, screencast tutorials were effective in promoting student learning of statistics. There is empirical evidence that multimedia (specifically videos) is a beneficial tool that helps people learn statistics. Our paper is aimed at developing a screencast video tutorial that teaches two important topics in statistics: variance and degree of freedom. Many researchers agree that concept of degree of freedom is a difficult concept to teach and learn (Everett , 2002). The difference between sample and variance can be understood in the context of degree of freedom. Everett (2002) explained how difficult concept degree of freedom is by saying “Degrees of freedom: An elusive concept that occurs throughout statistics” (p.111). Eisenhauer (2008) gave a good real life example to explain the degree of freedom. Suppose that there are three tasks required to be finished, which are nap, eat and read. Each task lasts 1 hour. We are required to schedule these tasks from 1 to 4 PM. We are not completely free in doing this. If we decide to eat at 1 PM, read at 2 PM, we are not free to choose the time of nap. It has to be at 3 PM. In this example, the degree of freedom is 3-