What is Statistics?
Core Competency Reflection
I have improved my critical thinking skills in Statistics 12 by learning about how to “properly” apply mathematical concepts to real-world problems. In Statistics 12, a lot of the work isn’t pure math. You often can’t answer a question by just solving an equation; you have to figure out what your mathematical answer means, and some things must be thought about instead of memorized. For example, when it was necessary to compare 7-point scale ratings in the Observational Study project, comparing the “rankings” of the ratings instead of the numbers of the ratings was more appropriate. The difference between a rating of 1 and one of 2 might be different from a rating of 3 and one of 4, so using the correlation of the ratings themselves might not give accurate results. However, since it’s known which ratings are higher than others, finding the correlation of rankings (Spearman’s correlation) was a more valid approach. While mathematical calculations were used here, it required understanding of the context to know how to analyze the data.