In sociology 346, my class and I learned a lot about statistics and how to use statistical equations to draw conclusions from a set of data. I also learned how to use Rstudio and SPSS, which are programs that can do the math for me for all those equations. First, we learned about SPSS and Rstudio in general. Then, we learned how to recode variables in those programs. Then we reviewed mean, median, and mode. After this, we started getting into more complex equations by starting off range, variance, and standard deviation and got progressively more complex after that.
We moved onto Z-score and probability. Then we learned about standard error and the associated intervals of 68%, 95%, and 99%. After this, we learned about t-tests and how there are independent and dependent forms. Then, we learned about ANOVA tests, Chi-squared tests, Pearson’s correlation, and then finally, regression tests. For all of them, we learned how to analyze the results and form an intelligent conclusion/interpretation based on the numbers we got. We learned how to do them by hand and how to do them using SPSS and Rstudio, except for regression which we only learned how to do in Rstudio alone.
All the statistics we learned matter because statistics are everywhere in the real world. It is on TV when we watch the news, it can be found at the jobs we may get hired for, and we use it to make decisions without even realizing it sometimes. It is important to understand the statistics we see so we can make sense of the world around us.
It is also important to know how to do statistical evaluations of data sets and be able to analyze what we find. This is important because we may run into a time at the jobs we may get out of college when we may be asked to do research or analyze a data set to present to other people who need that information.
In class, all of us made a manual to keep what we learned in this course. I specifically wrote up a formula sheet where I can have all the formulas on one page instead of many. We were told that this manual may be useful to us in the future when we get a job and are asked to do a statistical analysis of data. So, that is what I will use it for. If I end up at a job that comes with a desk, then I’ll be sure to keep the manual in there so if anyone needs help with statistics, I can lend them the manual for a bit or offer them help myself.