Introduction to Statistical Analysis

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Adopt an objective approach, reflecting on your own and others' value systems
• Identify and reflect critically across aspects of subject knowledge and their application in educational contexts and policies
• Assimilate new principles and understandings as they relate to key areas in education and at the intersection of education and psychology
• Use your knowledge and understanding critically to locate and justify a personal position in relation to education and psychology
• Formulate and justify potential changes in practice

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Organise and articulate opinions and arguments in speech, writing and other appropriate media using relevant specialist vocabulary
• Collect and apply numerical data appropriately, present data in a variety of formats including graphical and tabular and analyse and interpret both numeric and non-numeric data
• Process and synthesise empirical and theoretical data, to create new syntheses and to present and justify a chosen position having drawn on relevant theoretical perspectives

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Essential grounding in the research process as it applies to education and, for joint honours students, as it applies to education and psychology
• Diversity of learners and the complexities of the education process
• Underlying values and principles relevant to education and some of the core domains in the study of education and in the study of education and psychology.

An introduction to:

• Foundational statistical concepts (measurement, levels of measurement, probability, averages, measures of dispersion; illustrative graphs).
• Inferential statistical reasoning (samples, populations, point estimates, interval estimates)
• Answering research questions by null hypothesis testing
• Seven bivariate inferential statistical tests (for research questions specifying differences between groups, differences over time, and associations between concepts)
• The SPSS software package
• Reporting the results of inferential statistical tests of null hypothesis in the formal of a written academic research report

Teaching and learning methods

You will be expected to engage in 'active' learning through participation in seminar groups; group and class discussion; posing and responding to questions. In addition, you will be expected to actively engage with on-line resources available on Blackboard or elsewhere.

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Pears R. and Shields, G. (2019). Cite Them Right: The Essential Referencing Guide. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Williams, K. and Carroll, J. (2017). Referencing & Understanding Plagiarism. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.

Field, A (2018). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS statistics.. London: Sage.

Pallant, J (2020). SPSS survival manual: A step by step guide to data analysis using IBM SPSS. London: Routledge.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.