Education 160

Introduction to Statistical Methods in Education

Fall Quarter, 2002

Kenji Hakuta, Professor

Phone: 725-7454 / e-mail hakuta@stanford.edu/ Office Hours: by appointment (send e-mail), CERAS 238

I will generally be in the Big Tree classroom a half-hour before each lecture, and will hang around after class to answer questions.

 

Andrew Ho, Teaching Assistant

Office Hours: Wednesdays, 12:00-1:00, CERAS Lobby, or by appointment.

e-mail: adho@stanford.edu

 

Course Text

Welkowitz, J., Ewen, R. & Cohen, J. Introductory Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences. 5th Edition. Harcourt Brace College Publishers.

Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).

Course Description

The primary objective of the course is to introduce you to the major basic concepts in descriptive and inferential statistics, and to prepare you for subsequent statistical courses in general linear modelling (Ed 250A), analysis of variance (Ed 250B) and beyond.. The course begins with methods to describe and summarize frequency distributions. This is followed by various methods to describe the relationships between two variables. Finally, we provide an introduction to probability theory methods to draw inferences about the relationship between samples used in studies to the universe from which the samples were drawn. You will also be introduced to a statistical software program, SPSS. The course is meant to be informative and fun (yes, fun!), and we guarantee everyone that after this course, you will want to know more, and that the world of statistical thinking will never seem the same.

Homework exercises. Every week, you will be given problems posted on this website to complete. We very much encourage you to do these problems in groups so that you can have a chance to discuss them and pose questions. You should come to the discussion section, to be held on Thursdays, with your answers. The sections will discuss the problems and answers, and you may annotate your homework answer during the sections, at the end of which you will be asked to hand them in. Each homework will be graded as pass/no pass, but the primary intent of the homework is to assess your on-going learning and to guide our own instructional efforts. So, on your homework sheets, please feel free to include questions and comments that can help us teach you better.

Exams. There will be two take-home exams during the course, with problems similar to those found in the homework problems. These exams are under the honor code. Students may not discuss the problems with others until the problems have been turned in.

Grading. The final grade will be based on four equal weightings of the homework excercises, the two take-home exams, and a final project (to be announced).

Taylor's ED 160 Archive Resources

Week of
Main Topics

Data Sets, Homework Assignments, Announcements

(see Coursework for details)

9/23

Tour of statistics and measurement, research design. Ch. 1. 9/25 9/26

Thursday's news.
9/30 Frequency Distributions, Central Tendency, and Variability. Ch. 2, 3, 4, 5. 9/30 9/31: same as 9/30; 10/3

SAT-9 data (Excel file)

High School and Beyond, N=300

10/7 Data Transformation and Graphical Displays. Ch. 6, 7. 10/7-8, 10/9

Hand size data collection assignment

Wednesday's news: Brain Size Tied to ADHD.

SPSS Workshop 1, October 10
10/14

Normal Distribution and Statistical Inference. Ch. 8, 9. 10/14, 10/15, 10/16

,Early mammogram

Financial Times GMAT article

10/21

Testing for Differences between Means. Ch. 10, 11. 10/21, 10/22

hands dataset

Take Home Examination #1: Handed out October 22, due October 28, 5:00 PM
10/28 Correlation and Regression. Ch. 12, 13. 10/28 and 10/29, 10/30

FT on returns from higher education

NY Times on GAO Report on For-Profit Schools

SPSS Workshop 2, October 31
11/4 Regression, Continued. Ch. 14  
SPSS Workshop 3, November 7
11/11 Power Analysis (Ch. 14); One-Way Analysis of Variance. Ch. 15 11/11 11/12 Extra credit!
11/18 One-Way Analysis of Variance. While in the hospital...  
SPSS Workshop 4, November 21
11/25 Simple Factorial Design. Ch. 16 11/25 11/26 NY Times on Immigrants and Welfare
Take Home Examination #2: Handed out November 27, due December 5, 5:00 PM
12/2 Nonparametric Statistics. Ch. 17; Review and Looking Ahead. 12/2, 12/3  
SPSS Workshop 5, December 5

Class Project due December 9

Sample Projects from this Course