Why Take Statistics?

This course will introduce you to concepts and critical thinking skills that are used in various disciplines and that will help you learn to think like a scientist. Thinking like a scientist will help you to evaluate information, make decisions, and solve problems in your future career and in your everyday life.

Class Approach

Class time is split between lecture, activities, and Excel tutorials. Students get a chance to practice what they are learning during class time, where I can give immediate feedback and answer questions.

Applied Exams

Students complete applied exams that are a mix between an essay exam and a computer assignment. Exams consist of a short scenario with experimental data that student use to answer several questions. Questions include theory, calculation, and data analysis using Excel. Case-studies are take-home and completed during the unit of study.

Group Work

Students work in on a final group project conducting their own archival research using data sets from data.gov. These projects are presented as a conference-style poster during our final exam. This project serves to demonstrate the different kinds of data in students' disciplines, and the questions they can ask and answer with that data. 

Course Content

In the class students learn about: basic research methodology, descriptive statistics, inferential statistics for experimental and non-experimental approaches, interpreting and displaying data, and how to use SPSS statistical software.


Fall 2019 Sections:
Monday and Wednesdays 3:00 to 4:15
Tuesday and Thursdays 10:50 to 12:05

Spring 2020 Sections:
Tuesday and Thursdays 12:15-1:30
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