The actual material isn’t very hard at all. It’s as easy as making a sandwich, provided that you needed to apply pages of formulas to do what common sense already dictates.
It’s basically a logic class with very little use of math and formulas aren’t difficult to apply. However, it’s a notoriously hard class which most people earn a C+ in due to the fact that it’s taught horrendously by most professors.
It attempts to make simple problems as complicated as possible with jargon, greek symbols and overcomplicating tautologies. At one point I asked my professor if we really just spent a half hour with a chalkboard full of arcane formulas just to establish that all probabilities equal 1.
I’ve talked to numerous friends of various universities about this, and it was all a similar experience. Teaching an intro statistics course as just numbers on a chalkboard with little application of it to real-world problems solving is a bad idea. Most stats cirriculums don’t teach nurses and psychologists how to apply the data.
I think understanding the reasoning behind the proofs is important, however, this cannot be done unless students know that the objective is and what they are tasked with doing.
What common sense dictates? Ponder the “Monty Hall problem,” the birthday paradox and common sense.
Combinatorics is an important part of discrete math and fundamental to probability and statistics. While I might agree that it’s taught horribly, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with the first part of your statement. In my observation, stats was the class people took if they were afraid of calculus. If you were a C+ algebra student, you’re more likely to be a C+ student in other branches of math as well.
First off, 30 minutes is nothing for explaining a proof. Second, I doubt the formulas were that arcane but I suspect they were abstract and fundamental (Kolmogorov’s laws). Finally, a firm understanding of the sum of probabilities equalling one is important when you start understanding probability of what you want is (1 - the probability of what you don’t want).
Understanding and applying statistical formulas is paramount when presenting data for outcomes and studies involving medical devices and drugs. This is one aspect of stats that if not held to strict formulas will get your article booted from journals. Plus, you either prove or disprove your hypothesis through stats. You would hire a statitstician to do this for you based on your population size, methodologies, hypothesis, etc. it’s a very important part of clinical trials. Must be held to high standards and accuracy is key.
Statistics is important across fields, including psychology. Statistics is very useful in predicting the efficacy of a theory or program or test, but different statistics are used depending on questions and data type. For example, the public and educators may become excited about a new reading program, but will the new program work any better than the current program? Rather than adopting the latest program because critical are all enthused, statistics allow educators predict which program result in better student outcomes, and whether improved outcomes of a new program of a new program are sufficient to upend districts’ budgets. Statistics are extremely important in predicting the relative benefits of different choices that allows decision makers to make and explain informed choices.s
Statistics are very practical.
@fragbot Or stats was the class that people took because it was part of their curriculums and of more use than calculus and just maybe some students took and aced both?