Course Syllabus

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Statistics in Education for Mere Mortals

Instructor: Dr. Lloyd Rieber

Description

This course introduces you to the fundamentals of statistics. It is designed primarily for educational professionals, particularly instructional designers and developers. The course is also useful to anyone wanting a brief introduction to statistics, such as first-year education doctoral students about to take statistics as part of their graduate work. It is also a good refresher for education professionals who studied statistics in the past. The emphasis in this course is learning statistics by computing statistics. The cornerstone activity in this course is building Excel spreadsheets as a way to understand what all the various statistics mean and how they are derived. It is important that you go through the course in sequential order because the spreadsheets you build at the start of the course will slowly grow and become more complex.

The reason this course is for "mere mortals" is because it's designed for people who aren't, and don't want to be, statisticians or mathematicians. Instead, it's designed for ordinary people with ordinary math skills who want to get to the point of it all.  And, it's OK to have a little fun along the way too.

Things You Need to Already Know or Have

  • Mathematics: You need to know basic arithmetic
  • Microsoft Excel: You need to have access to either the Macintosh or Windows version and you need to already be able to do the following:
    • Enter data (and know the difference between text and numeric data)
    • Enter basic formulas and functions
    • How to fill formulas and functions across cells
  • Time, motivation, and money (oh wait, forget that last one - this is a free course!)

Course Goals

At the end of each of the course's modules, you will know or be able to do the following:

Welcome & Orientation (1 day)

  • Navigate the course
  • Course expectations and learning approach

Introduction to Statistics (2 days)

  • Scales of measurement
  • Measures of Central Tendency: Mean, Median, & Mode
  • The Normal Distribution
  • How to compute a mean using Excel

Descriptive Statistics (4 days)

  • Measures of variability: Standard deviation
  • Standard (z) scores
  • How to compute the standard deviation using Excel
  • How to compute a z score using Excel

Correlational Statistics (1 week)

  • The difference between univariate and bivariate distributions
  • The concept of correlation and the difference between positive and negative correlations
  • How to compute a Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (r) using Excel

Inferential Statistics, Part 1 (1 week)

  • Hypothesis testing and the null hypothesis
  • Statistical significance
  • Independent and dependent variables
  • How to compute a t-test value for an independent-samples design using Excel
  • How to compute a t-test value for a correlated-samples design (i.e. dependent t test) using Excel

Inferential Statistics, Part 2 (1 week)

  • Testing for differences between more than two means: The F distribution
  • How to compute an analysis of variance (ANOVA) using Excel

Note: The approximate time to complete each module is shown above in parentheses. This estimate is based on you spending on average one hour per day on this course. Of course, your time will vary but hopefully this gives you an idea of how much time you will need to devote to each module.

Evaluation

Each module ends with an evaluation. You will need the Excel spreadsheet you built during the module to complete the evaluation. You will be given some or all new data to plug into your spreadsheets. Then, you will be asked for specific statistics from your revised spreadsheets. (In most cases, you can just copy the answer from your spreadsheet and paste into the evaluation form.)

To earn a Certificate of Completion for the course, you need to complete each module and pass a final exam. The final exam will cover a range of learning, including facts, concepts, and application. You can take this final exam as often as you like until you pass it.

Note

Although Lloyd Rieber is a Professor of Learning, Design, and Technology at the University of Georgia, this course is not affiliated with the university.

Technical Help

Need technical support with Canvas? Click on the word "Help" in the upper right-hand corner of your Canvas screen. From there, you will be able to search the Canvas Guides, ask a question, or suggest a feature.  There is also a collection of "How to" guides found at How to use Canvas Network. 

Here are some guides that participants new to Canvas find most helpful:

Canvas provides a user experience that is easy, simple, and intuitive. Special attention has been paid to making Canvas screen-readable. The Rich Content Editor encourages users to create accessible content pages (i.e. text formatting is accomplished using styles). Canvas is designed to allow limited customization of colors and schemes to be accessible for all users. The National Federation of the Blind granted Canvas the Gold Level Web Certification in 2010. Find more information by visiting the Canvas Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT).

 

Course Summary:

Date Details Due