Post #151,114
4/13/04 11:44:50 PM
|
Major fustrations this week
Business Research Statitics, 140 pages to read, paper assignment to do on a research paper findings (that I cannot find a good one yet), and an Aleks statitics assessment.
Several family members have developed computer problems and will not take no for an answer. As I try to help them, I am doing what I can to get ready for the next class.
No response from my team, instructor refused to send me a Syllabus but told me what the first assignment would be like due on the first day of class.
I took the Aleks assessment, scored 90% on the math part, did very poor on the statistics part. Due in fact to the screwy pop-up Java calculator that they force us to use that lacks statitistcal functions, only works half the time, and when I copied number lists and formulas into it, they got greyed out and refused to work. Half the time the number lists would not drag and drop for me. I have a Statistical Calculator around the house but cannot find it, they said not to use it for the test anyway. Hard to do standard deviations, permintations, etc without a calculator or even tables to lookup. After the test it showed a pie chart on what parts I missed, and to rub it in I got put into a practice mode that I could not exit as it greyed out the menu items to go to other areas of the test. Aleks installed class files and an IE plug-in, which appears to be malware as it clobbered my network drives and turned my DSL speed into dial-up speed as I had it loaded into the browser. Only link I had available that was not greyed out was the messages link, so I took it and got my links back. I was told to print out a page, two links, one said print and the other said reports. Print the report and give it to the instructor. The report under the print menu or the report in the report menu? Fsck it, I printed both of them out.
I ordered a TI scientific/statistics calculator for $16, hope they let me use it in class. I sure could have used it on this screwy test. If you skip an answer in Aleks, you cannot go back, and it counts against you, despite the intructions saying that it will not count against you.
I got 140 pages to read before monday, too many distractions today, and I only got to read 7 of them.
Too many things going wrong, I hate this class already, hate it with a passion. I got part 2 to this class after it is over. It is going to be a long 10 weeks, 5 weeks per class.
I tend to agree with Mark Twain, "There are lies, then there are damned lies, and then there are statistics!" I have yet to see an accurate statitical research.
"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
|
Post #151,123
4/14/04 5:14:41 AM
|
Re: Major fustrations this week
You have my sympathy - not much else I can add.
Hang in a best you can
Cheers
Doug
|
Post #151,198
4/14/04 10:07:14 PM
|
Thank you, that means a lot to me.
Better than what some of the others have said to me. Like I said, they threw a drowning man an anchor. I am struggling here to learn, having difficulty, trying to expand my mind.
I went the proactive route and while nobody here could suggest a book or web site, I did some searching on my own.
Amazon.com was confusing to search, statistics turned up many books that had nothing to do with statistics. I sorted by price and found all kinds of junk unrelated. Then I did "intro to statistics" and found out of stock and out of print books. Then I randomly selected a book, turned out to be "Statistics for Dummies" and gave me a discount on "Statistics for the Utterly Confused" so I ordered both. :)
I did some searching on the [link|http://www.a9.com/|http://www.a9.com/] search engine and found these:
[link|http://www.andrews.edu/~calkins/math/webtexts/stattoc.htm|http://www.andrews.e...texts/stattoc.htm]
[link|http://biology.nebrwesleyan.edu/empiricist/sources/tips/stats1.html|http://biology.nebrw.../tips/stats1.html]
[link|http://cne.gmu.edu/modules/dau/stat/|http://cne.gmu.edu/modules/dau/stat/]
[link|http://davidmlane.com/hyperstat/|http://davidmlane.com/hyperstat/]
[link|http://icp.giss.nasa.gov/education/statistics/|http://icp.giss.nasa...ation/statistics/]
[link|http://www.meandeviation.com/tutorials/stats/|http://www.meandevia.../tutorials/stats/]
[link|http://www.statsoftinc.com/textbook/stathome.html|http://www.statsofti...ook/stathome.html]
[link|http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/sets/high_statistics.html|http://mathforum.org...h_statistics.html]
[link|http://faculty.uncfsu.edu/dwallace/|http://faculty.uncfsu.edu/dwallace/]
Believe it or not the eBook we have does not have an index or glossary, and apparently does not have an intro to statistics section so far. Just the research, business, and management end of it with endless buzzwords and lots of fluff. The real book costs $60USD, and based on my prior experience they will send me an older edition that does not match the eBook. I paid $50USD for the resource fee to access files for the class online, that was not an option.
My instructor refused to send me a syllabus, but she did eventually give me the asignments due for the first day of class. I have no idea what is expected out of this class save for the first assignment and reading and stat assessment. Guess I'll have to wait until monday for that when she finally gives us all a syllabus.
"What's the use of saving life when you see what you do with it?" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
|
Post #151,208
4/14/04 11:47:09 PM
|
Norm, statistics is simple arithmetic
add subtract multiply and divide. Statistics for dummies is a good start. I have trig for the common man and algebra for the common man. I never completed highschool so having these books are invaluable to me. It allows a glimmer of what desit and ben discuss. Statistics if you read conrad's comments carefully are fully doable with the above 4 factors. If you need a calculator to do long division and multiplication I suggest you put the computer down, get a deck of cards and a cribbage board and teach your son how to play. It will reinvest your mind with math again.
thanx.
bill
"You're just like me streak. You never left the free-fire zone.You think aspirins and meetings and cold showers are going to clean out your head. What you want is God's permission to paint the trees with the bad guys. That wont happen big mon." Clete
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
|
Post #151,219
4/15/04 1:49:33 AM
|
Re: Norm, statistics is simple arithmetic
Bill,
You are increasingly proving to be a kind and wise person. More I get to know you (through IWT), the more I like you.
Doug
|
Post #151,220
4/15/04 1:50:02 AM
|
Kind and wise?
Box, that's fightin' talk.
Smartass bastard is more your style :-)
Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
|
Post #151,244
4/15/04 11:22:57 AM
|
Not necessarily mutually exclusive
A kind and wise smartass bastard...Hmmmm....
/me likes!
jb4
shrub\ufffdbish (Am., from shrub + rubbish, after the derisive name for America's 43 president; 2003) n. 1. a form of nonsensical political doubletalk wherein the speaker attempts to defend the indefensible by lying, obfuscation, or otherwise misstating the facts; GIBBERISH. 2. any of a collection of utterances from America's putative 43rd president. cf. BULLSHIT
|
Post #151,246
4/15/04 11:24:32 AM
|
ICLRPD (new thread)
Created as new thread #151245 titled [link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=151245|ICLRPD]
-----------------------------------------
It is much harder to be a liberal than a conservative. Why?
Because it is easier to give someone the finger than it is to give them a helping hand.
Mike Royko
|
Post #151,264
4/15/04 2:30:14 PM
|
He's not so bad
after both of you have had a few brewskis. ;-)
lincoln
"Windows XP has so many holes in its security that any reasonable user will conclude it was designed by the same German officer who created the prison compound in "Hogan's Heroes." - Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Times
[link|mailto:bconnors@ev1.net|contact me]
|
Post #151,912
4/20/04 10:00:35 AM
4/20/04 10:08:57 AM
|
Class status report
Thank you very much that is the kind of response I was looking for. I am reading my books. The college offers a Statistics Learning Lab in two weeks and I am signing up for it.
The class is a business research class, but uses statistics, we covered some terms the other night and will go over them more next week. I was one of the few who got the instructor's joke that "It is all greek", as they use greek letters to represent things. :)
BTW other students had the same problems on the test that I did. A woman who took two years of statistics said she scored about as well as I did. Keep in mind that most of the students in my class are adults going back to school who had courses a long time ago and are now just going back to college to finish a degree. We have two more tests to take. The first test was only worth 5 points, very low, but without the Syllabus I did not know how much it was worth.
I read 147 pages in one week, I had to take the phone off the hook to do it. I had to tell a lot of people "No!" when they had computer problems and they understood once I told them how much work I had to do and what type of class I had. In 5 weeks I have to read over 700 pages. 124 pages for this next week. One student said she only was able to read 11 pages of the first section because her work didn't allow her to take the time to read it. Overtime I guess? There will be a quiz of course.
I was put in charge of the class while the instructor left for 15 minutes, as we formed into learning teams. I made sure everyone was on a team. My first management experience and I did well.
I wish I had time to read the other forums, but I got two papers to write and 124 pages to read. Usually we have 50 to 70 pages to read per week, this class covers almost twice the material in the same amount of time as the other classes.
"What's the use of saving life when you see what you do with it?" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
Edited by orion
April 20, 2004, 10:08:57 AM EDT
|
Post #152,962
4/28/04 6:53:51 PM
4/28/04 9:36:06 PM
|
It gets a bit more complex
when one has to compute the geometric mean. :)
After reading and learning more, I hope to score better on the next test they give us. I found out that I am one of the few who is actually reading the assigned book readings and doing exercises in the book. Half the class already dropped out, and I feel like I am on an epsiode of "Survivor". Next class is part 2 of this course and we might get merged with another tribe/class in part 2. :)
I didn't even see drop-out rates this high since I attended classes at the University of Missouri, Rolla. Second semester I was one of the drop-outs and went to a community college that was cheaper. The cost of living there was too high for me, and the pressure was more than I could handle at the time. I got in without taking the SAT because my ACT scores were high enough to cover the combined ACT and SAT scores qualifications for the college. Now I wished I had continued and stayed there to earn that four year degree. Now the pressure is on again, but I am staying this time. I am even finding errors in the book, and asking questions in class that others are too afraid to ask.
One small setback, there is no index or glossary in the eBook, and now I found there is no appendix either. The excercises refer to an appendix D or something to find the Excel file to use for doing the exercise, yet the Excel files on the web site for the class are cryptically named. Without the appendix I will not know which one to use, unless I open up all 60 of them to find the right one. Now I am not liking eBooks because sometimes they forget to scan in important parts of the eBook.
Ah what the heck, I will create my own Excel sheet or do the calculations on paper. Nothing is going to stop me from learning this stuff. I'll do Orr proud, as soon as I figure out a plan. ;) I'll just innovate around the problem using my creativity.
"What's the use of saving life when you see what you do with it?" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
Edited by orion
April 28, 2004, 09:36:06 PM EDT
|
Post #151,125
4/14/04 5:40:35 AM
|
Sheesh... (new thread)
Created as new thread #151124 titled [link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=151124|Sheesh...]
[link|mailto:MyUserId@MyISP.CountryCode|Christian R. Conrad]
(I live in Finland, and my e-mail in-box is at the Saunalahti company.)
Your lies are of Microsoftian Scale and boring to boot. Your 'depression' may be the closest you ever come to recognizing truth: you have no 'inferiority complex', you are inferior - and something inside you recognizes this. - [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=71575|Ashton Brown]
|
