Description
The need for estimating future results could be recognized in many segments of people’s lives. Some examples could be seen in the following questions:
How effective will a COVID-19 vaccine be?
Is it going to rain tomorrow?
Will the value of my 401K increase or decrease in the next 3 months?
These situations discuss the probability of an uncertain event. Statistics will help you advance from guessing to forecasting (educated guessing) by using data and calculating probabilities.
Discuss how likely it is that 70% of students will pass this course with a B or an A. Then, consider the following questions:
- Would you look at data showing the success rate of previous courses?
Would you check whether the current GPA of students in your class is high or low?
What other data would you like to have before you determine the probability of 70% of students passing this course with a B or an A?
POST 1
Meagan BligeWe learned in our Intellipath, Population and Sample Variance, that the outcomes of experiments are unknown and that estimates are almost impossible. The probability of 70% of students passing any given course with an A or B is uncertain until we look at the statistics of former students or at current students GPA scores. The probability of an outcome can range from 0-1 and in most instances, the outcome will not be alike. (Holmes, Illowsky, & Dean, 2017) You could also look at conditional probability which is a measure of the probability of an event occurring. It is calculated by multiplying the probability of the previous event by the restructured probability of the succeeding, or conditional, event. You can look at data from the previous year’s GPA scores and get the probability of students that passed the course. You can use sample variance for defined and organized results,but remember to use the correct steps to calculate the sample variance of a sample: Calculate the mean of the sample, evaluate the difference between each sample data and sample mean, square each result, add all of the results, and then divide the result by (n-1). You could also look at the data of the student when they took their placement exams or look at their high school transcripts. Data must be independent and unbiased. Analyzing their assessment scores will help predict how successful they will upon entering the course. You could also use the standard binomial distribution which is calculated by a formula . With a binomial distribution, the experiment must have a fixed or finite number of trials, the probability of success should remain the same through the entire experiment, the random variable counts the number of successful outcomes, and understand that there are only two outcomes: success and failure. (Intellipath, Binomial and Poisson Distributions) Regardless of what data you use to determine the success rate of students passing a course, remember to organize and summarize the data which is called descriptive statistics.Refereces: Biased versus unbiased estimates of population parameters [Image]. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ablongman.com/graziano6e/text_site/MATE…Trefor Bazett. (2017, November 19). Intro to conditional probability [Video file]. Retrieved from
POST 2
Terence WilliamsHi class!As I was looking over this week’s discussion board post, I was think of my chances of getting an A or B, so that I could somewhat personalize my decision. The first thing I looked at was my GPA, and how I normally do in classes. I typically hover around an A or B, with an occasional C, but not too often. So I would definitely consider looking at the person’s GPA. I also thought about what the average grade a person receives in this course, and those like it. The chances of 70 percent of people taking this course, getting those type of grades, would also depend on how often people get a grade like that while taking it. Some things that could change the results could be due to personal life situations. This is a remote class, and no two homes are the same. I would have to factor that into the equation. The age demographics would be another. Depending on a person’s era, I believe how we learn and effort is displayed differently through the age groups. I would also look at how much this class means to the overall degree plan a person has chosen. For those who work in this field, I would imagine they would take it more seriously. There are a number of outside variables that could determine a different outcome for each of us. With all that said, I tend to lean towards it being a yes that at least 70 percent will receive an A or B. The likelihood of that happening is high. The key factor to that is everyone in this course chose to be here, during a pandemic, and based off the submissions of this post, show a lot of effort being put out on display.
