So we write down a simple frequency distribution for a sample of scores {Xi}, where f(x) is the number of times each value X=x appeared in the sample:
| x | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| f(x) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
I ask her what the sample size is. She counted up the frequencies: "One, two, three, four, five. ...Uh, is it five?"
Then she says she just doesn't understand "that big E." (Deciphering exactly what this means is left as an exercise to the reader.)
She did not do well on the exam. I'm sure she has no clue that she did not do well on the exam.
22 comments:
I teach in the humanities, so in theory a weak grasp of mathematics is not a problem. In practice, I have had a stream of students this past week in a panic over their grade. They cannot calculate it, despite the fact that I use Blackboard to tell them how many points they've earned and how many points are possible for every single assignment.
These are my A students.
(Yes, I know I can have Blackboard weigh the scores for them, but I honestly didn't think it was necessary!)
It's such a horrible thing. I tutored people in physics for a while, and have since given up because it's just too painful for me, to try and teach people "physics" when what they really need to learn is "word problems" or possibly just how to turn a scenario into math and back.
I always feel very sorry for those students. The thing they think they need to learn isn't their real problem.
Σ ?
This is a problem. A major problem. If you can't get the "big E" you aren't gonna get a t or an or or an r squared or a p....let alone a chi or everything else. so you're really not going to get any statistics at all.
... a sigma?
Oh yes, as a high school stats teacher, I am familiar with "that E thingy", "that m thingy" and "that o thingy" (lower case sigma).
Aarrrrgggh!!
I'm guessing, based on the Big E comment, that she's not in a sorority.
Yes, the "big E" is Σ.
I teach a finance course whose prerequisites are Financial Accounting, College Algebra, and Probability & Statistics. The other day a student asked me how to calculate his grade. I told him that, as it says in the syllabus, the exams were 80% and the homework was 20%. He asked if I could show him an example. I said "no".
I'd be doomed in your class and would not have been brave to try it. I'm weak in math but had to take calculus in college as well as statistics. They were required in my liberal arts college (way back when). I made it through.
Angry Professor:
I also teach statistics in the social sciences. I save myself this kind of grief by handing out a 10 page math review sheet on the first day of classes and tell them if they have difficulty with the review sheet, seek help at the mat resource center or see me.
At the end of the first week of classes, I give a quiz on EVERYTHING that is on the review sheet. They have until the first exam to pass the math quiz with an 80 percent or better or they get no credit for the math quiz--which pretty much helps to doom them to an F. They drop at that point.
Oh... I took calculus my very first semester in college (I tested out of pre-calculus). By the time I saw a number again--my second semester of graduate school--I had completely forgotten why we use the summation sign! I'll give her a pass on that one. Of course, it took me all of two seconds to look it up and remember why we used the summation sign.
Ouch.
I love your final comment, though.
Remember, no child was left behind in the creation of this blog post. :(
I could NEVER do word problems in high school or earlier. They just didn't make sense. And then at some point, they just made more sense to me (and assuming I knew the basic math), I could draw them out and stuff. I should have been taught to draw things out more as a kid.
ps. So the sample size is five, no?
"Jee-zus GAWD," as my late grandmother would say. Dropping a class while I still could saved my ass many times as a student.
If she doesn't know what "that big E" is and she tells me she's passed calculus, I DON'T BELIEVE HER.
I'd probably flunk the quiz, but then someone who writes "outside of office hours" might well flunk an English quiz. Admittedly, Angry Professor is not professing to teach English.
I was an English major in Secondary Ed, and my engineer dad made me take through Calc II or he wouldn't pay for college. So, I did, and I found math secondary ed majors to help me (and I helped them on papers and such). One in particular, Amy, saved my butt in Calc II.
I tried stats and promptly dropped it. It's apparently the complete opposite to how I think. I was so dang confused.
OK, I'm a journalist and we tend to joke that there's a reason we weren't math majors. I took statistics to avoid calculus and it was about 6 years ago. I can talk for several minutes about the difference between who and whom, but I don't know why this girl's answer showed her ignorance. Is the sample size 5?
Their writing skills aren't any better than their math skills. I got an email from a student today that was so poorly written that I wanted to cry. He's not going to do well on his paper.
Students graduating from college today can't write in complete sentences. How low do educational standards need to get before we admit that they're too low?
The worst part is, students at this university are allowed to complain about their grades. The main complaint that I get from my students is that grammar shouldn't affect their grades.
They're wrong.
I never had a statistic course. I went thru arithmatic, algebra, geometry and a year of calculus before I went to college. I had a single calculus course in college.
I remember that arithmatic in grade school was a stupid melange of dumb things to do with numbers. Algebra and calulas were quite elegant. They were systems you could use to describe things. That was and still is exciting. That also meant that they were very usefull.
Calculus was hard work for me, I was not very good at it. After I developed an understanding I found that calculus helped me to refine my thinking skills in ways that are useful in everything that I do. It has been 35+ years since I have done an intigration, but the training still serves.
I did not have statistics at any time during my educattion. I wish I had some. In my line of work I get presented with questions that have a statistical apsect every day. I wind up guessing at the correct decision some times because I do not have the training to analyse the problem.
Also if I had a grasp of statistics it would greatly enhance the quality of my bullshit detector.
Your student's understanding of arithmetic is fine. It really is the statistics that she doesn't understand.
"the big E?" That's confusing. I thought you meant ∃, the existential qualifier and was wondering what that had to do with intro stats...
I remember once getting some crap grade on an exam in 400 level Psyc because we had to do ANOVA on paper with no calculator or cheat sheet. When I went to see the prof their was another student waiting to see him in tears (she was a returning student planning to go on for her doctorate).
I only occasionally have to program a complex formula these days, usually I just run Proc Statistics.
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