PSY230, Introduction to Statistics Faculty Member: Gene Schmidt Phone Number: (480) 423-6238 College: Scottsdale Community College Credits: 3
OFFICIAL COURSE DESCRIPTION ABSTRACT OF DIVERSITY INFUSION WITHIN COURSE TEXTBOOK PRESENTATION OF DIVERSITY-RELATED MATERIALS CLASS SCHEDULE OF DIVERSITY-RELATED SEGMENTS SUCCESSES AND DIFFICULTIES STUDENT EVALUATIONS OF COURSES INFUSED WITH DIVERSITY RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

 OFFICIAL COURSE DESCRIPTION: TOP
An introduction to basic concepts in descriptive and inferential statistics, with emphasis upon application to psychology. Consideration given to the methods of data collection, sampling techniques, graphing of data and the statistical evaluation of data collected through experimentation. Required of psychology majors. Prerequisites: PSY101 with a grade of C or better and MAT092 or equivalent or permission of instructor.

ABSTRACT OF DIVERSITY INFUSION WITHIN COURSE:TOP
The diversity issue which was infused, gender differences in mathematics performance, was not just salient to the course content, but relevant to academic and career decisions for the students. It would also apply to later workplace concerns about performance. The issue was more about individual difference than gender difference, so that the issue was clearly relevant to those male students with performance difficulties similar to those stereotypically associated with females. The performance advantage of females in verbal skills, also key skills in the course, were also discussed. Thus the specific gender difference issue opened the more general issue of individual differences in learning styles and learning deficits and strategies for working around them.

COURSE TEXTBOOK:TOP
Duplicated handouts were utilized for instruction and assignments. In bundles at the start of each of the five sections of the course, and in small sets for a day’s assignment, the handouts acted as lecture notes, reference material, tables and visual models, and class work and home work problem sheets. The new assignments and instruction sheets which relate to the infused gender differences issue were simply included in the handout sets.

The course also offers about half of the instructional materials via the course management system (Blackboard) on the Web. This material includes home work help sheets, web work assignments, tests, discussion boards concerned with assignment questions, and reading assignments.

PRESENTATION OF DIVERSITY-RELATED MATERIAL:TOP
The issue of gender differences in mathematics performance was incorporated
in data analysis examples and class work and home work problems (e.g. Male-Female group differences, or correlations with test performance for Males or Females compared). Also through individual evaluations of a problem solving exercise involving a presentation sent to a columnist whose error in statistical reasoning perpetuated a gender bias concerning mathematics performance.
Also in class discussions based on data collected from the class itself on attitudes about gender differences in mathematics performance, and other gender differences (Who exhibits better verbal reasoning, males or females?).

Examples of presentation techniques

Lecture-didactic -> A point about the gender difference in visual-spatial analysis skills as applicable to other mammals, even rodents, was exemplified by comparing vole species which show the difference in laboratory maze tests, but only during mating season (hormone influenced) to vole species who are monogamous, the male not needing to search out other nest sites, and showing no laboratory tested advantage of females in visual-spatial ability. Similar animal analogies were asked about on the pre- and post- surveys about knowledge of, and attitudes about gender differences.

Lecture-interactive -> A lecture presentation of the results of students taking the SAT Math test either under the pressure of having been told the test is predictive of their college and career success, or not, and taking the test either paired with the same gender or race, or not, was followed by a class discussion of test anxiety, whether females are more prone to test anxiety in uncomfortable subjects like mathematics, and who gets better grades and quiz scores in mathematics classes, males or females, as opposed to better exam performance. These class discussion issues were also asked about on the pre- and post-survey.

Lecture media presentations (Adobe, not MicroSoft): Class screen presentation of the Ideal Body Weight scale for females, and class collected data on male and female rated expectations of the weight gain different age and current body weight females would be willing to tolerate, was presented and discussed in class. The gender differences were presented on the student views of tolerated weight gains with stopping of smoking, for example that male student raters expected on average that older females would be willing to tolerate more weight gain than younger females, was contrasted with the female student raters lack of difference in expected tolerable weight gain for older versus younger smoking women. The presentation led to class discussion, and the offering of examples and explanations of different male and female expectations of tolerable weight gain, a vanity concern, compared to health gains from quitting smoking.

Written materials: News articles, abstracts from journal articles, and excerpts from books or articles are presented in the context of an exercise. For example, a news article on the gains in female versus male college attendance and employment is presented in the context of a trend analysis of two rates over time.

Multi-cultural infusions: A discussion of gender differences in height, or hairline or right hemisphere performance on the WAIS, was contrasted with the lack of gender differences in blood types or digit span performance on the WAIS. Where there are gender differences that seem to have both a genetic and also a cultural basis, such as preference for chocolate or athleticism in dance. Other cultural gender differences then poured out in class discussion.

Description of Student Assignments/Activities Related to Diversity:

In-class discussions: Discussion often flowed from points raised in the context of discussions of diversity. For example, as height and intelligence gender differences were discussed as examples of comparisons of standard normal distributions, specific exceptions such as females who grow very tall because of genetic deficits in somatostatin, or males who have similar deficits to females in visuo-spatial skills like map reading. The class discussion then allowed the critical point to be made about broad gender differences as contrasted with individual gender differences. The discussion of any measure, such as height or intelligence which is normally distributed, as attributable to many independent causal factors (binomial approximation of the Standard Normal distribution) thus flowed naturally from all the exceptions to the general rule and the discussion of height and intelligence as caused by a mix of experiential and genetic determinants. Examples were also given of measures such as hair color or eye color which are not determined by many causal factors and thus not normally distributed. Also to be made was the point that while gender differences in height are not controversial, success predicting, or emotion eliciting, others such as intelligence differences in gender, even if on just some components of intelligence tests, are nevertheless a source of continuing discomfort because of the importance for career juices and life success. Class discussion was therefore a vehicle for discussing the diversity issue, a statistics issue, an individual versus group difference issue, and the emotions elicited by differences that exert influence on life success.

Student collaborations: The majority of the work for the class is conducted collaboratively, and since the diversity infusion was across all assignments, the majority of activities, including testing, group work in class, and discussion work on-line, the gender difference issues were imbedded in the majority of student collaborative work. One on-line project involved collaboration with not only statistics students from all statistics classes but also from the Methods class which I also teach (many gender difference issues normally are included in that course). Students from all courses contributed criticisms and constructive suggestions at a common Discussion Board for shaping a best possible response to a sexist columnist’s accusation of pro-female bias in a newspaper article.

Written discussion replies: Students received test points for writing thoughtful, logical and expressive replies to questions relating to gender difference findings as a part of section tests. For example, data from a study on altered interactions among attendees at a ‘Math Camp’ aiming to reduce the fall-off rates of females getting masters and doctors degrees in mathematics were presented with discussion questions for which students produced and posted their interpretations and opinions. It is the student postings and threaded replies which were graded for contribution to the discussion based on relevance and insight.

Surveys: The student evaluation of the infused content was a pre- post- survey for which the results were analyzed, discussed and questions answered by the students themselves, as one of the final class exercises. Discussion questions generated additional written evaluations by students of the gender difference issues raised in the course. The written opinions are about the gender differences in shift in attitude from the beginning of the course to the end for different issues, differently for males and females. For example, Males shifted toward more agreement significantly less than Females with a statement: “In college mathematics classes, female college students tend to score better on home work and quizzes, but males score better on comprehensive final exams.” A contrasting analysis for another survey questions was: “Agreement that ‘on the college entrance SAT exam, on the quantitative or mathematical portion, males have clear advantage in scoring’ showed males initially agreeing more but increasing agreement much less than females at the end of the course.”

OUTLINE OF CLASS SCHEDULE SHOWING DIVERSITY RELATED SEGMENTS: TOP
The diversity related segments were interspersed throughout the course, replacing in the first semester about one fourth of assignments and examples and in the second semester more than half of assignments and examples. There was an initial measure of attitudes and awareness of gender differences in areas of academic performance and a second measure at the end of the course. The largest amount of written interaction on the infused issues was in the fourth of the five sections of the course, where conclusions drawn from data were studied using examples of specific gender differences in visual-spatial skills, social skills, verbal skills, and academic work skills such as timely home work.

SUCCESSES AND DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED: TOP
There was a clearly charged aura around the infused geneder difference issue, but the emotion was typically defused as both other gender differences in cognition which favor females were discussed, and as the recurrent perception of differences between groups which are very minor compared to differences between individuals were discussed. For each specific argument about differences in competence, such as for visual-spatial analysis, there was also presented the implicitly greater individual difference in visual-spatial competence apart from gender, or race or age. This caveat to stereotyping was presented in the context of discussions about the “Bell Curve” for any given trait.

Gender differences were shifted, ideally, from stereotyping of groups to individual differences on a trait. This was made relevant to individual students with suggestions that even very competent individuals with a history of success in mathematics must face the limits of their competence when encountering ever more advanced course work. Implicitly then, an individual student might face hurdles or limits in many different academic skill areas at many different levels of difficulty. Someone who loves math must still decide at some point if they really want to face the mounting demands of higher math, or go for a more applied discipline with their confidence still intact. And for those who have struggled with
mathematics performance since childhood, objectifying the problem, whether
expressed as a gender difference or not, was hopefully helpful.

The anecdotal evidence about the need for this infusion is colored almost entirely by the dread, as described by students, of the Statistics Class itself. It is seen as a hurdle in sequence with the mathematics classes for degree requirements. (Many students planning for a graduate degree or specialist program find that they need a statistics prerequisite, and have been away from any mathematics class for five or ten years. Thus the dread can have been just recently renewed.) The gender difference discussions in class then took on a relevance that is particularly personal even though the generality of gender differences is presented as needing circumspection. The dread can be fed by the stereotype based on gender as well as academic experience, and the infusion was planned to be an antidote and inoculation for both gender based and experience based threats to self esteem.

Based on the student surveys, and change in agreement with statements about gender differences from the beginning to end of the semester, the main difficulty encountered was a combination of entrenched attitudes about gender differences on the part of both male and female students, and inability to believe the stated findings on gender differences or the conclusions from studies presented in class. Male students especially were very little inclined to shift agreement with statements which favored females and often shifted to less agreement with statements which put males in a bad light. Even on those issues for which there was little gender difference among respondents in shift of agreement, there was also very little shift, suggesting the statements were distrusted and disbelieved both before and after lecture or discussion. Over my years of teaching, I have encountered many issues for which students are decidedly determined to disbelieve my pronouncement, even when it is a very factual or widely agreed upon, or empirically demonstrable issue. Most such issues have to do with religion, race, gender and social class.

I point out to students that there are some topics which they will find very relevant and interesting, such as about sleep habits and disorders, for which they will find no conflict with their pre-existing beliefs. It says nothing about sleep in the Bible and very little in their high school text books. In contrast, other issues having to do with gender, hormones, drugs, learning disorders, behavior disorders and so forth will likely challenge their pre-existing beliefs. These warnings too fall on deaf ears. There is evidence that students do change such entrenched attitudes after enough exposure to enough challenging instructors. And I do see students who nod in delight when they hear statements from me about non-traditional perspectives which they too have come to believe. So I take heart that my infusion work will have some success in the long run.

STUDENT EVALUATION OF COURSE INFUSED WITH DIVERSITY: TOP

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:TOP