Survey Says: Using Course Long Projects to Connect Statistics to the Real World

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Survey Says Using Course Long Projects to
Connect Statistics to the Real World

• AMATYC Meeting
• November 2007
• Minneapolis, MN
• Johnny Duke, Ph.D.
• Georgia Highlands College
• Rome, Georgia
• jduke_at_highlands.edu
• www.highlands.edu/academics/divisions/math/SurveyS
  ays.ppt

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Survey Says

• Connections
• NCTM Process Standard
• Connections among the various areas of
  mathematics.
• Connections between mathematics and the real
  world.

3
Survey Says

• Advice from the American Statistical Association
• students should have the experience of
  applying their learning in settings as real as
  possible during their education. This could
  include co-ops, summer jobs, class projects
• Ritter, Starbuck, and Hogg

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Survey Says

• Introduction to Statistics is a service course at
  Shorter College and at Georgia Highlands.
• A variety of majors Business, Biology, Ecology,
  Middle Grades Education, Mathematics, Social
  Sciences, History
• Concern that learning was disjointed and isolated
  from real life.
• First conceived of a semester long project while
  working with Service Learning.

5
Survey Says

• Goals
• Connect what was being learned in class with a
  real life application.
• Connect the various elements of introductory
  statistics to each other.
• Learn to use technological tools (calculators and
  computers) to organize and present data.
• Give students an experience that would help
  prepare them for the use of statistics in their
  future careers.

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Survey Says

• Volunteerism Survey Collecting Data
• Creation of a survey instrument
• What types of data are needed?
• How to word the instrument for clarity.
• Types of sampling techniques
• Random Sample
• Systematic Sample
• Stratified Sample
• Cluster Sample
• Convenience Sample

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Survey Says

• Volunteerism Survey Organizing Data
• Database Entry
• Standardize entry for consolidation
• Frequency Distributions
• Categorical
• Ungrouped and Grouped
• Graphs
• Bar graphs
• Pie Charts

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Survey Says

• Volunteerism Survey Analyzing Data
• Measures of Central Tendency
• Measures of Variation
• Confidence Intervals
• Single Population Hypothesis Testing
• Two Population Hypothesis Testing
• Did the sampling method appear to make a
  difference?
• How do religious and non-religious volunteers
  compare?

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Survey Says

• Volunteerism Survey Presenting Data
• Graphs and Charts
• Written report
• Connection with English
• Connection with skills in Introduction to
  Computers

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Survey Says

• Other projects
• Television Sex and Violence Survey 1999
• Data Collection Different
• The need for training became apparent
• Could be combined with literature research
• Presidential Election Polls 2000 and 2004
• Intersected with current political events
• Very similar process to Volunteerism Survey
• Students learned to use Minitab in 2000 and Excel
  in 2004

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Survey Says

• Other Projects
• Spring 2001
• The groups proposed projects that I could approve
  or not approve.
• I provided a list to help them brainstorm.
• This made it easier for students to apply
  statistics to their field/particular interests.
• There was unevenness in the amount of statistics
  used in the projects in terms of correlating to
  the topics covered in class.

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Survey Says

• Other Projects
• Statistical Analysis of SAFE 2002
• An after-school program of the Rome City Schools
• Combined Service Learning
• Used this project to teach SPSS
• By far the most important project
• Disappointment with testing error that caused the
  data to be thrown out

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Survey Says

• Other Projects
• Statistical Analysis of the Tax Assessments for
  Residential Property in Floyd County 2003
• Collection of data from the public records at the
  Tax Assessors Office
• Comparison of actual selling prices with the
  appraised prices in 2002

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Survey Says

• Other projects
• Human Body Proportions and the Golden Ratio
  2005
• Testing the claims from Internet sites on the
  Golden Ratio
• Data Collection and Entry into Excel
• Descriptive Statistics
• Confidence Intervals and Hypotheses Testing
• Correlation and Linear Regression

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Survey Says

• Other Projects
• Local Weather
• Local high, low, and precipitation for a month
  from weather.com
• Descriptive stats and graphs using Excel
• Probability and probability distributions
• Confidence Intervals
• Hypothesis Testing
• Correlation and Linear Regression

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Survey Says

• Other Projects
• Skittles (MMs)
• Used in Maymester
• A much lighter project
• You can eat the data

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Survey Says

• Ideas from others
• Salaries of Major League Baseball Players from
  USA Today Wiseman Chatterjee
• Sex, Drugs, and Rock RollBolstad, Hunt,
  McWhirter
• Birth records from North CarolinaHolcomb Ruffer

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Survey Says

• Ledotlers List
• Salaries of Professors at the University of Iowa
• Predicting future student enrollment at U of Iowa
• ACT and College Performance
• Sports statistics
• Automotive Studies
• Safety of Iowa Roads
• Health-related Issues
• Real Estate listing and selling prices
• Sales and attendance analysis of a local
  restaurant
• Radio station preferences

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Survey Says

• Grading
• Series of worksheets
• Total generally equivalent to 1.5 to 2 test
  grades
• Both individual and group work

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Survey Says

• Result of One Student Survey
• 94 agreed with These projects helped me to
  better understand statistical concepts.
• 82 agreed with Using the same data set
  repeatedly has helped me to see there is a range
  of statistical procedures (techniques) that may
  be used to investigate/answer the same question.
• 97 agreed with These projects helped me to
  learn how to construct graphs and tables for
  statistical analysis.
• 82 agreed with Working in groups helped me to
  learn to communicate statistical ideas.
• Holcomb Ruffer, p. 52

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Survey Says

• What are your questions?
• What are your ideas and/or experiences?

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Print Resources

• Bolstad, W. M., Hunt, Lyn A., and McWhirter,
  Judith L. Sex, Drugs, and Rock Roll Survey in
  First-Year Service Course in Statistics, The
  American Statistician, 55, 145-149.
• Duke, Johnny I. Service Learning Taking
  Mathematics into the Real World, The Mathematics
  Teacher, 92, 794-796.
• Holcomb, John P. And Ruffer, Rochelle L., Using
  a Term-Long Project Sequence in Introductory
  Statistics, The American Statistician, 54,
  49-53.
• Kvam, Paul H. The Effect of Active Learning
  Methods on Student Retention in Engineering
  Statistics, The American Statistician, 54,
  136-140.

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Print Resources

• Ledolter, Johannes. Projects in Introductory
  Statistics Courses, The American Statistician,
  49, 364-367.
• Ritter, Mary Ann, Starbuck, Robert R., and Hogg,
  Robert V. Advice From Prospective Employers on
  Training BS Statisticians, The American
  Statistician, 55, 14-18.
• Root, Rob and Thorme, Trisha. Community-Based
  Projects in Applied Statistics Using
  Service-Learning to Enhance Student
  Understanding, The American Statistician, 55,
  326-331.
• Wiseman, Frederick and Chatterjee, Sangit.
  Major League Baseball Player Salaries Bringing
  Realism into Introductory Statistics Courses,
  The American Statistician, 51, 350-352.

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Internet Resources

• http//www.cis.ysu.edu/jholcomb/projects/projects
  .htm This site provides the database and
  materials that accompany the project described in
  Holcomb and Ruffers article.
• http//asp.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/salaries/
  This is the USA Today site for Major League
  Baseball salaries from 1988 through the current
  season.
• http//asp.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/salari
  es/ This is the USA Today site for NFL
  salaries from the 2000 season to date.
• http//www.usatoday.com/sports/nba/salaries00.htm
  This is the USA Today site for NBA salaries for
  the 2000/2001 year.
• http//www.census.gov/ The official site of the
  US Census Bureau, which contains a wealth of
  statistical information.