University of Maryland University College Statistic Discussion

Discussion 1

As a student at UMGC, you have been asked to join a fictional committee that will partner with new students in various programs of study. You will work alongside UMGC students from other programs to coordinate a weekend event that includes a tour of the campus, an informal meeting with students who are interested in your program, and a lunch-and-learn session with a panel of experts from various fields.

During the meeting with students who may be interested in your field of study, one student mentions that a program requirement is statistics. That student asks you why statistics is needed in this program. Do research online and create a thoughtful reply to the student, including a list of at least 3 specific ways in which statistics is used in your field. Include references from the online sources. This serves as your initial post to the discussion and is due by 11:59 pm EST on Saturday.

Read the replies from the other members of the class and compare the role that statistics plays in various fields. Are you surprised by any of the ways that statistics can be used across disciplines? Did you see any commonalities? Make at least one substantive peer reply post by 11:59 pm EST on Tuesday.

Discussion 2

Your work on the new student committee was a huge success! The director of new student recruitment has requested that you continue your work on the committee. Specifically, the director would like you to distribute a small survey to the students who attended the weekend event, gauging their level of interest in studying at UMGC. The director is interested in obtaining demographic information from the prospective students, the academic program into which they would enroll, and their overall level of interest in attending UMGC. The survey questions and results are below:

Survey questions given to prospective students What is your age? Would you live in on-campus housing or off-campus housing? Into which academic program would you enroll? How likely are you to attend UMGC in the next year? (rate 1-4, 1 is not likely and 4 is very likely)

Student	Age	Housing	Academic Program	Likely to attend UMGC
1	18	Off campus	Political science	4
2	19	Off campus	History	1
3	17	On campus	Cybersecurity	2
4	30	Off campus	Nursing	4
5	18	On campus	History	3
6	21	On campus	Psychology	4
7	45	Off campus	Business	2
8	20	On campus	Business	3
9	18	On campus	Accounting	4
10	36	Off campus	Nursing	4
11	25	Off campus	History	2
12	29	Off campus	Sociology	2
13	31	Off campus	Spanish	2
14	19	On campus	Psychology	2

Your first task is to define the data resulting from each survey question as qualitative or quantitative. If the variable is qualitative, indicate if it is nominal or ordinal. If it is quantitative, indicate whether it is discrete or continuous and whether it is interval or ratio (see graphic below).

Next, create a table (a frequency distribution, stem and leaf plot, or a grouped frequency distribution) to organize the data from one of the variables. Does including the relative frequency or cumulative frequency make the table more meaningful? Why do you feel this table best organizes the data? Include the table in your post.

Then, consider how you might visually display the results as a graph (bar graph, Pareto chart, dot plot, line graph, histogram, pie chart, or box plot). Why did you choose this graph? Explain why you believe this graph is the best choice to display the data. Include the graph in your post.

Finally, find the mean, median and mode for one of the variables. Which of these measures of central tendency do you think is the best choice for “average” and why? Find the range and standard deviation (measures of dispersion) for the variable. What would a narrower or wider deviation signify in the context of this data?