Complete Curriculum And Begin Offering Courses In Fall 2013
Complete Curriculum and Begin Offering Courses in Fall 2013. Two full semester online courses were offered beginning Fall 2013 for the first cohort of 16 students. CRIJ 6394 - Victimology and CRIJ 6334 - Research Methods and Quantitative Analysis.
Objective
Students Learn Basic Statistic Skills
Students learn basic statistic skills in CRIJ 6334 - Research Methods and Quantitative Analysis
Indicator
Students Complete A Series Of Statistics-oriented Homework Assignments And A Final Exam For The Course.
MS students will be able to use basic statistics commonly applied in social science research. The use of these statistics will be applicable to examination of data distributions, hypothesis testing, and related tasks commonly encountered using “real world” data from criminal justice agencies. Although functional use of these skills is practiced in the course, the main objective is to produce better consumers of research upon graduation.
Criterion
Statistics Portion Of Homework Assignments And Final Exam
Students have homework assignments and final exam questions graded by the instructor. In order to pass those assignments and earn credit for the statistics portion of the final exam, students must successfully answer a series of multiple choice/true-false questions in addition to showing manual calculation steps for test statistics such as chi-square using sample data provided by the instructor.
Finding
Fewer Than 20% Earn Full Credit
Many students struggle with computational aspects of statistics, despite relatively simple mathematics involved (e.g. simple division). Fewer than 20% earned full credit for the hand-calculation sections of the final exam. However, conceptually, students can identify key concepts related to statistics and most are capable of choosing the correct test statistic when provided with a basic vignette-style example. One persistent challenge is that students in the MS program have relatively little exposure to statistics coursework prior to the research methods class.
Action
Additional Supplemental Materials Will Be Added
Instructor will seek out additional supplemental materials related to statistics that are especially pertinent to real-world scenarios and practitioners seeking terminal graduate degrees. The research methods course should also be carefully considered relative to the overall curriculum for this degree program. Many students selecting into this degree program lack fundamental mathematical and statistics skills.