In my social statics course, I learned how to measure data in different ways, as well as how to interpret said data that I measured. We did these calculations by hand and using two different statistical platforms, Rstudio and SPSS. Within these platforms, we were able to insert the data that we coded last semester in our social research class, and put in different codes to get the system to run the tests for us. This would save us time in the future if we ever need to run these codes through a system, but if we do not have access to said system and have a smaller data set I now have the knowledge to use the different formulas and do it by hand.
Throughout this course, I also learned multiple different terms used when discussing different data sets. Learning these terms will help me in the future when trying to understand different statistical research, or when reading different articles. As I am now also able to understand the charts that are placed into the data and can now effectively use the data from those instead of not being sure what they might mean.
When looking at the larger context of life, using statistics is very important. For example, all research that we have today has used some form of statistics or statistical formulas. Statistics is important when trying to study anything that involves any data analysis, therefore, without it, there would be no true research. Even if you say we could do ‘trial and error,’ keeping up with what happened each time with those is still using data which in turn picking out which worked the best and the most would involve using statistics.
What I have learned in this class will not only help me in my future career but it could also help me if I decide to go to graduate school later on. As we created a “Statistics Manual” that includes all of our formulas as well as different examples that we did on the different online platforms. This manual can help me, as I will not have had to memorize the formulas, and I can look back at it and know exactly what to do.
Within my future career, I can use it to analyze the types of calls my department runs, crime scene investigations to see what the most common issues are, see what part of town could be most dangerous, or even analyze ‘use of force’ situations. If I get a promotion it might be my duty to figure those sorts of things out and be able to delegate different officers as seen fit. So I would need to examine the different data sets and compare what has worked, what could work, what has been tried and succeeded or failed, or even see what hasn’t been tried. It will help me be able to understand the different issues that my county faces, and if I am successful in helping my county, I could possibly work to help other counties when it comes to similar issues.