Measured Thinking: Reasoning with Numbers about World Events, Health, Science, and Social Issues
The National Council on Education and the Disciplines (2001) warns that "The world of the twenty-first century is a world awash in numbers.... Unfortunately, despite years of study and life experience in an environment immersed in data, many educated adults remain functionally innumerate." What does it mean to be literate in a world rich with numbers? How can we learn to think with and about numbers to inform decisions? How can we marshal the power of quantitative rhetoric in argument?
This course aims to condition students to approach everyday problems with Neil Lutsky's 10 Foundational Quantitative Reasoning Questions (Microsoft Word 43kB Mar26 08) in mind:
- What do the numbers show?
- How representative is that?
- Compared to what?
- Is the outcome statistically significant?
- What's the effect size?
- Are the results those of a single study or of a literature?
- What's the research design (correlational or experimental)?
- How was the variable operationalized?
- Who's in the measurement sample?
- Controlling for what?
This course is one of several recently-created courses designed to enhance student facility with quantitative reasoning. In the last three years, all of these courses have been first-year seminars. While most of the other courses created for this purpose fall within traditional departments and count toward distribution credit, this course is interdisciplinary. In addition to serving the specific goals of the quantitative reasoning initiative, this course is also designed to meet the broader objectives of the first-year seminar program: to teach first-term students to think and write at the college level.
This course is an adaptation of a course of the same title designed and taught by Neil Lutsky.
This course is designed to introduce students, at the very beginning of their college careers, to the quantitative reasoning lens. The goals of the course match those of the broader quantitative reasoning initiative on campus:
Goal 1. Thinks quantitatively
1. States questions and issues under consideration in numerical terms.
2. Identifies appropriate quantitative or numerical evidence to address questions and issues.
3. Investigates questions by selecting appropriate quantitative or numerical methods.
Goal 2. Implements competently
4. Generates, collects, or accesses appropriate data.
5. Uses quantitative methods correctly.
6. Focuses analysis appropriately on relevant data
Goal 3. Interprets and evaluates thoughtfully
7. Interprets results to address questions and issues under consideration
8. Assesses the limitations of the methods employed, if appropriate to the task or assignment
Goal 4. Communicates effectively
9. Presents and/or reports quantitative data appropriately
Numbers We All Should Know (Microsoft Word 33kB Mar26 08) (adapted from an assignment written by Neil Lutsky)
Numbers We All Should Know Referee Report (Microsoft Word 32kB Mar26 08)
Public Service Report (Microsoft Word 30kB Mar26 08)
Public Service Report Referee Report (Microsoft Word 31kB Mar26 08)
Critical Analysis of NYT Op-Ed (Microsoft Word 29kB Mar26 08)
Public Policy Priorities Oral Presentations (Microsoft Word 28kB Mar26 08)