PPD_502x_Syllabus_Summer_2012_final loredo

University of Southern California School of Policy, Planning and Development Instructor: Professor Elvira Loredo Phone: 310-393-0411, x.7108 E-Mail: stat502loredo@gmail.com (best way to reach me) Teaching Assistant: So Hee Jeon Phone: E-Mail: soheejeo@usc.edu or stat502loredo@gmail.com Office: Online Class Location: Online Class Dates: June 11, 2012 – August 24, 2012 Class Hours: 2-hour presentations each week on Thursday at 6 pm Pacific time. These sessions may be attended live or reviewed later in recorded format. Office Hours: By appointment COURSE DESCRIPTION This class serves as a graduate level statistical prerequisite for students pursuing the MPP, MPA, or MHA in the School for Policy, Planning, and Development. The goal of the class is to prepare students with the statistical foundations required to intelligently work with numbers and data in managerial situations. Additionally, the course prepares students to take courses in quantitative analysis and policy or program evaluation. Students will review and understand selected statistical techniques for summarizing and analyzing data and for addressing public policy and management questions of interest using applied data analysis. Unlike many foundational courses in statistical analysis, which focus on business statistics or statistical analysis within a particular social science or scientific discipline, this class will focus on statistical applications typically used for public policy and management analysis. Credits received in the course cannot be applied to the unit requirement for the MPA, MHA, or MPP. TEACHING METHOD This course is taught in a distance format. Class sessions are held online and students need not reside in Los Angeles to take this course. Course assignments will consist of a text book and web-based instructional materials associated with the text. There are also a number of short videos introducing the use of basic statistics in research being conducted by SPPD professors. Weekly online sessions will be conducted using web conferencing software. These sessions will focus on the applications of concepts to issues of public management and policy and review applications of the concepts introduced for that week. The sessions, however, do not directly introduce those concepts. Students are responsible for reviewing these concepts through the text and the accompanying multimedia materials and for coming to class having prepared to review the applications. There will be a traditional PPD 502x Statistical Foundations for Public Management and Policy Summer 2012 2 textbook that can be bought in either hard copy and web-based formats or only in the web-based format (this second option is less expensive). There are 10 problem sets during the course session. The first one introduces students to the online problem sets employed in this class and is not graded. The other 9 problem sets are required and graded. All problem sets will be conducted online. There are two exams, a midterm and a final. Both will be take home exams. While students will retain flexibility on when they review the modules and do the reading, there are strict deadlines for the problem sets and the exams. See the course outline for these due dates. Although students will work in disparate locations, we have designed it to provide multiple opportunities for interaction. Students will post personal profiles on Blackboard, so that students know who else is in the class. We will host a discussion board where students can post questions on the material or class administration. Students are welcome to answer the questions, and I will be answering questions also. I will hold office hours. Students can call me during office hours, but we will preferably host my office hours employing web-based teleconferencing that will allow me to share information on the web and on a whiteboard. For students who would like to work in groups for the problem sets and to study for exams, we will set up video conferencing groups to support such collaboration. COURSE OBJECTIVES Students in this course will learn 1. To identify the sources of data most frequently used by managers, policy analysts and researchers in policy, planning and management; 2. To recognize the manner in which data are collected and the biases that may arise from different collection techniques; 3. To organize and arrange data in graphical forms that clearly conveys the essence of the data; 4. To apply basic numerical techniques to summarize data, including measures of central tendency, dispersion, and correlation, specifically as they tend to be applied within policy and management; 5. To analyze sample data to make inferences about broader populations, with particular emphasis on policy and management applications; 6. To understand and apply the “recurring themes” of basic statistics in problem solving and critical analysis in the field of policy and public administration; 7. To be able to use spreadsheet programs and/or statistical tools. TEXTBOOKS & COURSE RESOURCES  Sullivan, Michael, Statistics: Informed Decisions Using Data, 3 rd Edition Pearson.  Pearson CourseCompass Blackboard Website. I am using the Blackboard site because it is faster and because it allows me to centralize all of the course material in a single place. This site will host the discussion board and link to the course resources. I will use this website to communicate to the whole class.  This course does not have traditional lectures. Material is presented in multiple formats. The primary resource is the text which is supported with multimedia tools. Weekly online sessions will present applications of that week’s material and will give students an opportunity to ask questions. It will be assumed that students will have read the book prior to the weekly sessions.  There are a number of additional, though optional, resources that students may access for reviewing or reinforcing concepts: 3  A set of web-based modules that include interactive exercises and review questions. These are hosted on www.uscdistancelearning.com/statistics/.  A set of instructional videos that were created by PBS a number of years ago called Against All Odds. They may be accessed at www.learner.org/resources/series65.html. Useful titles are listed in the syllabus.  Other articles, reports, videos, and web sites demonstrating the use in policy settings of the statistical techniques taught in the course will also be assigned and/or made available. TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS Because of the distance learning format, all students must have access to some basic computer technology. They need a computer with at least a 1 GHz chip, at least 512 MB of RAM, and a current web browser (preferably Internet Explorer, Safari, or Firefox). It is recommended that the students have a broadband internet connection, though it is feasible to complete the course with only dial-up access (web conferencing, however, does not work particularly well on dial up access). ALL STUDENTS MUST CONDUCT THE BROWSER CHECK PRIOR TO THE BEGINNING OF THE CLASS. See the first announcement on the announcement page of the course web site. COURSE REQUIREMENTS Course Material  Students must keep on the schedule of lecture modules and chapter reading. The course is divided into 11 weekly sessions. The sessions begin on Monday and end on Sunday at 11:59pm.  There are problem sets reviewing material every week. The problem sets must be completed by 11:59 pm Pacific Standard Time on the posted due date. Students will be locked out of the problem set if it is not completed on time. I can grant extensions, if needed, but I must be asked at least 24 hours in advanced of the due date. Student interaction This course requires a high degree of student commitment and initiative. The core material is presented in the text and additional videos and readings. Students are responsible for keeping up with the reading. Most importantly, you are responsible for reaching out for help to master material. You can view videos, consult the optional materials, and ask the professor or TA for help. WE EXPECT STUDENTS TO EMAIL AND CALL US WITH QUESTIONS. I will hold weekly office hours employing web conferencing software that can accommodate multiple participants. If students wish to work on problem sets together, they are encouraged to do so. We have web conferencing facilities to allow them to interact more easily. More information on how to use the web conferencing will be forthcoming. To facilitate student interaction and discussion all students are required to:  Post questions to the appropriate Blackboard discussion. You can email questions directly to the Professor and TA, but students also need to post the question on the discussion board so that all students can benefit from all questions and answers.  Participate in an on-going discussion about topics and assignments on the Blackboard discussion site. Students are required to post to the discussion board at least one link to news stories 4 that touch on the material we are learning in class. They should describe how the statistics come into play in the story. GRADING AND COURSE EVALUATION 30% Midterm Exam 35% Final Exam (Comprehensive) 5% Participation on the Blackboard discussion board 30% Problem Sets ACADEMIC INTEGRITY Students must maintain strict adherence to standards of academic integrity, as described in SCampus (http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/SCAMPUS/). In particular, the University recommends strict sanctions for plagiarism, as defined in SCampus: 11.11 Plagiarism A. The submission of material authored by another person but represented as the student's own work, whether that material is paraphrased or copied in verbatim or near-verbatim form. B. The submission of material subjected to editorial revision by another person that results in substantive changes in content or major alteration of writing style. C. Improper acknowledgment of sources in essays or papers. Note: Culpability is not diminished when plagiarism occurs in drafts, which are not the final version. Also, if any material is prepared or submitted by another person on the student's behalf, the student is expected to proofread the results and is responsible for all particulars of the final draft. 11.13 Cheating on Exams A. Any use of external assistance in the completion of an academic assignment and/or during an examination shall be considered academically dishonest unless expressly permitted by the instructor. The following are considered unacceptable examination behaviors: communicating with fellow students during an exam, copying material from another student’s exam; allowing another student to copy from an exam; possession or use of unauthorized notes, calculator, or other materials during exams and/or any behavior that defeats the intent of an exam or other classwork; and unauthorized removal of exam materials. Source: SCampus University Governance http://web-app.usc.edu/scampus/1100- behavior-violating-university-standards-and-appropriate-sanctions/ Academic accommodations. Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the letter is delivered to me (or to TA) as early in the course as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open early 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. The phone number for DSP is (213) 740-0776. 5 COURSE OUTLINE AND LECTURE SCHEDULE NOTE: The schedule and due dates may be adjusted during the semester to account for unforeseen events. PS –Problem Set Sullivan - Sullivan, Statistics: Informed Decisions Using Data, 3 rd Edition WLM – Web Lecture Module AAO -- Against All Odds Week Topics Chapters / Readings Week 1 June 11 to June 17 Lecture June 14 6:00 pm Pacific Time What is Statistics and Its Application to Public Administration, Public Management, and Public Policy Objectives:  Introduce students to the importance of statistical literacy to Public Administration, Public Policy, and Public Management.  Demonstrate the basics about collecting data and the implications for the inference that can be drawn based on that data. Introduction to Statistics and Statistical Reasoning in the Policy Process Sullivan Chapter 1 Data Collection Sullivan Section Video Lectures (found in Prob. Sets & Videos under Section Lecture Videos) Goldin, Rebecca, Spinning Heads and Spinning News: How a Lack of Statistical Proficiency Affects Media Coverage, http://stats.org/stories/2009/lack_stats_affects_media_oct8_09.html Michael Blastland, What the survey didn't say... and Myths of Counting, BBC News Magazine, 8/15/2008. news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7542886.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7554022.stm Multimedia: John Stewart has a field day lampooning biased cable polls How SPPD Professor Use Statistics: Professor Dowell Myers – Who’s Your Denominator Optional: WLM #1 AAO – #1 “What is Statistics” #14. Samples and Surveys Sullivan, Optional PowerPoint Presentations (found in Prob. Sets & Videos) Due Sunday, June 17, 2012: Problem Set #0 and #1 6 Week 2 June 18 to June 22 Lecture June 21 6:00 pm Pacific Time Using Data to Make Persuasive Policy Arguments Objectives:  Recognize the importance of data graphs in analyzing and communicating data on management issues.  How to tell a valid and compelling story through the graphical display of data  Identify common methods used to misrepresent data graphically. Sullivan Chapter 2 Organizing and Summarizing Data Sullivan Section Video Lectures (found in Prob. Sets & Videos under Section Lecture Videos) How SPPD Professor Use Statistics: Professor Lisa Shweitzer – Using boxplots to compare transportation choices Optional: WLM #2 Graphing Distributions AAO– #2 Picturing Distributions Sullivan, Optional PowerPoint Presentations (found in Prob. Sets & Videos) Due Sunday, June 24, 2012: Problem Set #2 7 Week 3 June 25 to July 1 Lecture June 28 6:00 pm Pacific Time Using Data to Make Persuasive Policy Arguments (continued) Objectives:  Recognize the importance basic summary statistics for analyzing and communicating management issues.  Calculate standard measures of central tendency and dispersion that are used to summarize data.  Differentiate between these measures and understand the situations in which they should be employed.  Calculate and interpret the correlation coefficient.  Recognize the uses and limitations of correlations.  Construct and interpret a contingency table Sullivan Chapter 3 Numerically Summarizing Data Sullivan Chapter 4.1 and 4.4 Describing the Relation between Two Variables Sullivan Section Video Lectures Michael Blastland, Just What is Average BBC News Magazine, 8/15 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7581120.stm How SPPD Professor Use Statistics: Professor Jenny Schuetz – Thinking about gentrification How SPPD Professor Use Statistics: Professor James Ferris – Correlations in the patterns of philanthropic giving Optional: WLM #3 Summarizing Distributions WLM #4 Describing Bivariate Data AAO– #3 Describing Distributions 8. Describing Relationships and 9. Correlation Sullivan, Optional PowerPoint Presentations (found in Prob. Sets & Videos) Due Sunday, July 1, 2012: Problem Set #3 8 Week 4 July 2 to July 8 Lecture July 5 6:00 pm Pacific Time Introduction to Probability and Probability Distributions Objectives:  Indentify management decisions that require probabilistic reasoning..  Compute and interpret probabilities.  Differentiate between these measures and understand the situations in which they should be employed.  Distinguish between discrete and continuous random variables  Use Binomial and Poisson to calculate probabilities that arise out of administrative decision-making situations.  Read and interpret a probability distribution.  Apply Bayes’ Rule to calculate the probability that of some event given some evidence. Sullivan Chapter 5 Probability including Section 5.7 on CD or on webbook. Section 5.5 and 5.6 pp. 317-318 are optional Sullivan Chapter 6 Discrete Probability Distributions Sullivan Section Video Lectures Optional: WLM #5 Probability AAO – 15.What Is Probability? 16. Random Variables 17. Binomial Distributions Sullivan, Optional PowerPoint Presentations (found in Prob. Sets & Videos) Due Sunday, July 8, 2012: Problem Set #4 9 Week 5 July 9 to July 15 Lecture July 12 6:00 pm Pacific Time The Normal Probability Distribution and Sampling Distributions Objectives:  Interpret and apply Normal probability distribution.  Recognize the difference between a population distribution and a sampling distribution.  Define and explain a sampling distribution.  Understand why the sampling distribution of a sample mean has a normal distribution. Sullivan Chapter 7 The Normal Probability Distribution Sullivan Chapter 8 Sampling Distributions Sullivan Section Video Lectures Optional: WLM #6 Normal Distribution WLM #7 Sampling Distributions AAO – 4. Normal Distributions 5. Normal Calculations 18. The Sample Mean and Control Charts Sullivan, Optional PowerPoint Presentations (found in Prob. Sets & Videos) Due Sunday, July 15, 2012: Problem Set #5 Week 6 July 16 to July 22 Review Lecture July 19 6:00 pm Pacific Time MIDTERM Covers Material Through Week 4 Due Sunday, July 22, 2012: Take Home Midterm 10 Week 7 July 23 to July 29 Lecture July 26 6:00 pm Pacific Time Introduction to Statistical Inference Objectives:  Recognize how most management decisions are made based on sample information  Differentiate a sample and a population.  Define and interpret a Student’s t distribution.  Calculate and interpret a confidence interval for a population mean, a proportion, and a population standard deviation. Sullivan Chapter 9 Estimating the Value of a Parameters Using Confidence Intervals Sullivan Section Video Lectures Optional: WLM #8 Estimation WLM #9 Logic of Hypothesis Testing AAO – 19. Confidence Intervals 20. Significance Tests Sullivan, Optional PowerPoint Presentations (found in Prob. Sets & Videos) Due Sunday, July 29, 2012: Problem Sets #6 Week 8 July 30 to Aug 5 Lecture Aug 2 6:00 pm Pacific Time Hypotheses Concerning a Single Population Objectives:  Understand the logic of hypothesis testing  Define a research hypothesis and a null hypothesis.  Explain Type I and Type II Errors.  Calculate and interpret a test statistics Sullivan Chapter 10 Hypothesis Tests Regarding a Single Parameter Sullivan Section Video Lectures Optional: WLM #10 Testing Hypotheses for a Sin