Introduction to Statistics (MATH 1280) at UoPeople

I want to talk about Introduction to Statistics (MATH 1280) at the UoPeople in this entry. I wanted to take this course after College Algebra (MATH 1201) but didn’t go for it as I felt I needed to prepare for it. I found through Facebook that it's the most feared course at the school, especially for the business and health science majors. I must confess that I’ve studied Stats in my previous intended Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at a brick-and-mortar university before I switched to Arts. However, the Stats course I studied wasn’t taught through any computer language but merely via mathematics. The Stats course that is instructed at the UoPeople is taught through a computer language called "R." Computer languages are my kryptonite, and it's the primary reason I switched to Arts from Computer Science in my previous degree. It’s also the reason I needed preparation for this course.

My Stats class at the UoPeople had 26 students, and not many dropped the course. I must say the class was very civil, but some students always plagiarized their work verbatim from questionable sources. My instructor didn’t formally let us know her background or education. But Google says that she has an M.A. in Statistics from the University of Missouri. I read a couple of negative reviews about her on the "Rate My Professor" website once she was assigned to me. Two reviews, years apart, called her “condescending.” Though some of the things in those reviews were true about her, I didn’t find her condescending. In my opinion, she was a decent and sweet instructor with minor drawbacks. She only sometimes provided feedback on Learning Journals. I’ll post my full review of her in My Ratings of Instructors at UoPeople page.

You get a book assigned to you in this class, which I found a bit dull. A professor at the UoPeople has annotated that book, meaning that they've added some comments, remarks, and explanations to it. Then there are some notes prepared by the same instructor. I would suggest studying the annotated book and notes and solving the examples/problems from each chapter. I consulted three other books apart from the one provided by the university. The books are Introductory Business Statistics with Interactive Spreadsheets, Introductory Statistics, and Practical Statistics for Data Scientists. You can consult them for the topics you’re having issues with. They explain things way better than the prescribed book by the UoPeople in my view.

You have to install a computer language called R for this course. You don’t have to install R studio. So, don’t get confused between the two. Ditch R studio. Get R only. You also have to download some data files. The path on a Windows 10 machine should be: C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\Documents

YOURUSERNAME is the name on your Windows 10 machine. Don’t open those files in Microsoft Excel as it’ll damage them.

You have to write 8 Discussion Forum posts, 5 Written Assignments, and 8 Learning Journals in the course. The Discussion Forums are only 5% of the total grade. The Discussion Forum questions can be very vague at times. Mostly, there is no one right answer, and you can address them differently than your classmates would. I would suggest implementing creativity in them by employing critical thinking, graphs, and including solved real-life examples. Also, there are no mathematical questions like the College Algebra course in the Discussion Forums.

The Written Assignments are also worth 5% of the total grade. For most of the Written Assignments, you have to use R. You have to do a great deal of work and answer at times 20 or more statistical questions in the assignments. I found them a bit difficult and time-consuming sometimes. The last assignment is like a quiz. There’s no time limit on it, but it’s computer-graded just like the quizzes. One of my friends' dad has a PH.D. in statistics and teaches at UCLA. For this course, I got weekly lessons from him on the areas I particularly found difficult in the course. Mostly, it was the R language and commands. If you’re having trouble with R, then I would recommend getting lessons prior to the course from someone that can help you. I also got help from resources like R Coder and YouTube.

The Learning Journals are worth 20% of the total grade. It has three parts in the course, namely, Learning Journal Reflective comments, Vocabulary and R functions, and Tasks. In the first part, you have to tell your instructor about any problems you faced, noteworthy things that happened in the week, and the time you completed all the course tasks during that week. In the second part, you have to answer questions about R commands, terms, and functions. In the third part, you have to solve or discuss how you would solve a given statistical problem. I had to do plenty of research for the 3rd part as the questions sometimes were slightly ambiguous. My journals consistently topped more than 1000 words. My instructor was a bit tough marker, but thankfully, I got scores in 10’s and 9’s only due to my diligent work.

There are three Graded Quizzes in the course. They’re worth 30% in total. You get 16, 20, and 16 statistical questions to solve in the first, second, and third quiz, respectively. You’ve to complete each quiz in 1hr 30 mins, which is more than enough to solve the questions. I didn’t find any iterations of questions from the non-Graded Quizzes in the Graded ones. The questions are in the fill-in-the-blanks format mainly with a few multiple choice ones. The first quiz was fairly easy and covered topics like identifying the data types, finding mean, median, frequency, speed, standard deviation, and so on. The second quiz was alright and covered topics like probability, expectation, standard deviation, random variables, Poisson distributions, variance, R commands, etc. The 3rd quiz was a bit difficult and covered topics like normal approximation, various distributions, probability, expectation, standard deviation, and so on.

The Final Exam had 20 questions. It’s worth a whopping 40% of the total grade. You get 1hr 30 mins to finish the exam. It covered topics like sample size, mean, standard deviation, frequency, probability, variance, expectation, distributions, and so on. This is a proctored exam. However, you’re allowed to use the R language, consult your notes and the textbook, and use a basic calculator during the exam. I was done in 1hr 15 mins. I and my online proctor had a chat for a couple of minutes afterward. A nice and decent individual overall.

I had been preparing for this course gradually since September 2020. And, I ended up getting an A+ in the class. My Stats course at my previous university did help me somewhat. But the R language is a whole different ball game. My very strong suggestion for you is to access the book from the syllabus repository at the UoPeople and start reading the chapters way before you take the class. Practice as many problems as you can on the topics in the course. Another recommendation for you is to get lessons for the R language, especially if you're a business or health science major. You should know what a particular command does and how to solve a statistical problem using it in R. Whatever approach you take for the course, keep in mind that you need to study very hard to keep up with the increasing complexities each week. Your notes, level of understanding of the concepts, programming knowledge in the R language, and overall grasps of the subject are the key ingredients of your doing well in MATH 1280 at the UoPeople. Arm yourself with the right tools before you slay the course. Good luck!