Oh boy what a doozie this assignment was and I would like to add a disclaimer at this time: going forth I have no idea if I did this assignment correctly. So if you are a student in Dr. Pierce's Ed 6305 this fall and reading this for answers I assure you that mine may not be correct. I also 96% guarantee that I have different numbers than what you came up with. Why you may ask but I have no idea if I did this correct or not. So now that it's out there take my assignment for what its worth and please please please feel free to reach out to me if you want to discuss what we may or may not be doing. If you are NOT a student in Dr. Pierce's class then please feel free to reach out to me to teach me what the heck I am supposed to be doing! So now that the air is clear let's get on with the rest of this blog!
If you have been following the blogs then you will see from previous blogs that we have been working on a action research project. Last blog we had to create hypothesis research questions to begin, well researching. This assignment was to take all of the data provided to us by Dr. Pierce and preform t tests on the results comparing two variances. This is also called bivariate analysis: a study that examines the relationship between two variables. If you would like to check out a site that helps explain all the different definitions of variables and etc.. please take a look at this AP Statistics Tutorial. So in order to conduct this analysis we must do a t test assuming equal variances. In order to conduct a t test you must have access to Microsoft Excel and of course have the data analysis pack installed (check out previous blog to see how to install that). The interpretation of the t test results depends on how big your p value is. If this makes any sense to you then good blessings to you because it took me a long time to interpret this let alone how to perform a t test and understand it. But lets move on...
Below you are going to find a link to a worksheet provided by Dr. Pierce which allowed us to practice doing t tests. I highly encourage everyone to look at it for two reasons 1) for my results to the practice t tests and 2) it provides more insight into why we perform t tests and how to interpret the results. Plus there are two really good screen casts made by Dr. Pierce on how to do a t test so for you newbies to this you will see where we are going with this. I personally have looked at this worksheet for countless hours watched the screen casts more times than I count and can honestly say I still don't know if I am doing this correctly. And I feel better knowing that I am not allowed a lot of my class mates are having the same issues as me so I know that the boat I am sitting in is very crowded.
Here is my thing I see how beneficial this can be. I understand why Dr. Pierce wants us to learn this information and be able to effectively use it. I just can't seem to grasp how to do it so my confidence level in being able to educate students or other educators to perform this or explain the importance of this is very low. Which is out of character to every other assignment we have completed thus far in the course. I feel like this type of assignment would better be instructed through a monitored hands on lab where the instructor would be able to face to face discuss a student's struggle and show demonstrations first hand on how to correct these struggles. I also feel that moving on from this assignment to the next is nearly impossible if you can't get passed this one but none the less I will keep everyone posted on how I am doing with this assignment and if I am doing this correctly it will come as a complete shock to me!
The standard that this assignment completes would be NETS_T 5. This assignment is really something we would teach students or incorporate into lesson plans but it is designed to help us grow professionally in our trade. Again I see and appreciate the value I just wish I had more confidence in my ability to do it.
Again I will keep everyone posted! Hope everyone else finds their way through this!
Andria
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