S012: Introduction to Statistics for Educational Research

The HOW: The S-012 experience engages us in building a supportive course community where we all learn from one another. In place of more traditional pre-work such as reading chapters or articles, we will instead use videos (filmed by the instructor specifically for this course) and interactive opportunities for practice as preparation for each class meeting. This will allow us to use our time together to explore statistical topics in a deeply engaged and participatory format. Throughout the course, we will focus not only on the methods themselves but on why and how their use can represent a powerful tool for enacting change. We will emphasize the summarizing and presentation of statistical results for multiple audiences. Our focus will be on understanding how to use and interpret the statistical procedures commonly used in quantitative research, to become both critical consumers and ethical producers of quantitative work. 

The WHAT: This course covers the basic principles of elementary statistics, providing a good foundation for students intending to do further course work and research involving the use of statistical analyses. We will cover both continuous and categorical data analysis, with topics including: basic descriptive measures; comparisons between groups; hypothesis testing; correlation; and techniques for analyzing categorical data. There will be a heavy emphasis on applications of basic statistical concepts to a wide variety of problems encountered in educational and policy-related research. We will use Stata as our statistical software in this course. There will be multiple assignments -- some to be completed individually, some with a partner -- involving data analysis and reporting of research results, as well as a final project.

The MONDAY SECTION: While the whole class meets together on Tuesdays, students are also expected to attend one 75-minute smaller-group section led by a Teaching Fellow on Mondays. Final assignment of section times will not be done on my.harvard during enrollment, but rather will be coordinated by the teaching team after enrollment has occurred.