Table 8.

SAAB survey majors vs. nonmajors for a subset of community colleges^a

	Majors (n = 25)						Nonmajors (n = 39)
Category	Pre average	Pre SD	Post average	Post SD	Wxn	ES	Pre average	Pre SD	Post average	Post SD	Wxn	ES
Decoding primary literature	3.0	0.74	3.4	0.56	0.044	0.51	3.0	0.62	3.4	0.52	0.001	0.73
Interpreting datab	3.6	0.79	3.7	0.82	0.285	0.12	3.5	0.93	3.7	0.90	0.041	0.23
Visualization	3.3	0.66	3.5	0.60	0.254	0.32	3.1	0.66	3.5	0.67	<0.0001	0.65
Research in context	3.9	0.72	4.3	0.63	0.004	0.61	3.9	0.54	4.1	0.60	0.026	0.45
Certainty of knowledge (R)	3.8	0.45	3.8	0.54	0.795	0.00	3.8	0.50	3.9	0.47	0.101	0.21
Innate ability (R)	3.1	1.03	3.5	0.91	0.162	0.42	3.3	0.69	3.7	0.76	0.009	0.57
Creativity	4.2	0.72	4.6	0.58	0.072	0.49	4.1	0.60	4.4	0.68	0.008	0.56
Sense of scientists	3.2	0.87	3.7	0.69	0.024	0.70	2.8	0.82	3.5	0.88	0.001	0.84
Sense of motives	3.6	0.83	3.9	0.90	0.142	0.35	3.5	0.79	4.1	0.74	0.002	0.81
Known outcomes (R)	3.4	1.36	3.4	1.00	0.912	0.00	3.7	0.94	3.9	0.80	0.332	0.22
Collaboration	4.6	0.58	4.3	0.63	0.150	0.25	4.4	0.54	4.6	0.55	0.050	0.33

^aUsing code numbers and major status information from the SALG survey, we were able to identify 25 “majors” and 39 “nonmajors” within the SAAB data. We recalculated SAAB outcomes for 64 of the 73 students whose SAAB results are reported in Figure 2, B and C. Bold type denotes significant gains per Wilcoxon signed-rank test (Wxn; http://vassarstats.net). Notably, both cohorts made significant gains in both self-rated process skills and epistemological belief areas, with nonmajors/undecided making more gains overall than did majors. In many cases, the majors have higher pre scores than the nonmajors, but these differences were not significant (t test for unequal samples, Excel); see the text for discussion.

^bBased on three of the four statements in this scale from Hoskins et al., 2011.