Student Comments

I am writing the following in response to Dr. Leon's request to write comments for Statistics 571.

Statistics 571 is an excellent course to take. It is very informative. And it has provided me with the foundation that I will need to make further advancement in statistics coursework. It is the BEST statistics course that I have ever taken.

The instructor, Dr. Leon, works very hard in class to get his ideas across to the students. I really enjoy the way he uses his voice to command students' attention. Dr. Leon is very thorough in lecturing. And he is also very patient when answering students' questions. And the class notes are very well prepared.

If I were to rate Statistics 571 on a scale of 1-100, I would give it a 100. THANK YOU!!!

One tentative suggestion: If bootstrap procedure is gaining more and more popularity, students may enjoy more lecturing on that.

I want to say "thank you" for teaching this course as I discovered that you are an excellent teacher. I found this course very rewarding and practical. Your lecture notes were extremely helpful, especially the notes pertaining to using JMP applications. I appreciate your examples, which helped to clarify many of the concepts. Of course, the homework helped a great deal, too. I look forward to studying under you again in the M.S. program and, perhaps, beyond.

Dr. Leon requested that I submit a comment from my perspective of his class. I am a Master Black Belt with a Fortune 150 company and statistics is foundational to my job. I explained to Dr. Leon going in that I am sure he would teach me a great deal and I am not a person who thinks I am above learning even though I am very familiar with the topic. Was I ever right!! My undergrad work was in business and engineering with limited statistics so most of my statistics background came from work. Even though I am responsible for teaching Black Belts and Green Belts how to use statistics to solve problems the class was very beneficial to my understanding. I was challenged with the material and especially liked the books that I read for book reports. The regression project was a challenge since it dealt with many new analysis techniques that I was not familiar with. The JMP software was a challenge since I had cut my teeth on MINITAB and had to step back and learn where all the commands were. Overall this is a very good course and the application possibilities in industry are enormous. I am currently teaching a Black Belt class and plan on using the knowledge that I obtained from the class to improve my presentation. Thanks, Dr. Leon

The name of Dr. Leon seems to be connected with the overloaded homework. Before I took the course, I had heard about it, which was the major reason I took it in summer when I might have more time. I was still surprised at the intensive pressure, especially when the end of the semester was approaching. Yet, I did see the other side of the coin, which was definitely positive. I was reminded of the old adage, "Practice makes perfect.” I am not sure if I got perfect with statistics, but I am assured that the complicated concepts and notions, which was so tough to me, a student majoring in a social field, became unbelievably clear and will be always fresh in my mind. Thanks to the project and the take-home exam, I became to enjoy the whole scientific procedure of seeking an appropriate model, which is truly interesting and fun. I got more confidence in myself, while recognizing that I still have much to learn. I also had a lot fun while reading the assigned book “Calculated Risk,” which has largely broaden my academic horizons and extensively stretched my thoughts about the informed public in a democratic society. Statistics is like a game, in which you would win if you knew the rules and how to control. In this sense, statistics tells the truth of life.

BTW, I'd love to say I understand Dr. Leon was very sympathetic to his students, which was what I most appreiciated. If more vivid examples could be added into the slides, it would be great with helping students thoroughly understand in what case what notions have to be considered and what formula should be used.

Overall, I thought the course was outstanding. The other statistics courses I have taken were difficult to understand and concentrated on the mechanics of various tests rather than explaining what was going on behind the scenes. Please see below for comments on specifics:

Instructor: Dr. Leon was very knowledgeable in the subject. He could clearly explain concepts with which the students were having difficulty and challenge those students who were not. He was consistently enthusiastic about the course, encouraging many questions and interaction. Overall, he is one of the best professors that I have had. The evening office hours were held too early for me to attend due to work. Dr. Leon did hold several sessions at 9:00 PM for the late workers.

Text: The text selected was clear and understandable. It gave a good background for the theory of the course. One drawback is that some of the ANOVA tables did not match the ANOVA tables in the JMP software, which led to some confusion (although I could figure it out from the JMP help and other material in the text).

Tests: The two take-home tests were fair and within the expectation of time given to complete the test. I felt that the grading was fair.

Book Report: In my opinion, this was one of the highlights of the course. I really enjoyed Dr. Gigerenzer's book and have gained insight into everyday application of statistics in an understandable way. Excellent suggestion for reading!

Project: The project was probably one of the higher stress items in the course, mainly because I was not if what I was doing was what was expected. A previous example would have been beneficial, but on the down side could have limited the creativity of the student's project. The web site provided by Dr. Leon was very beneficial for me in determining the subject and scope of the project. Dr. Leon was again available for discussions and help, graded the projects fairly, and provided good feedback on how to do the project better in the future.

Homework: When I signed up for the course, I was a bit leery of the amount of homework based on the previous students' comments. As we moved through the course, though, I found that the homework was very helpful in understanding the concepts that were being presented. Dr. Leon has applied a lot of thought as to what problems are assigned to limit the duplication yet give the student adequate practice. Yan Liu was a fair grader for the homework problems. She completed the grades in a timely manner and provided good homework review sessions.

Technical: The coursework was easy access and was almost always available for review. There was some initial confusion in setting up the classrooms, but this was resolved quickly. The microphone tended to fail once or twice a class early in the course, but toward the end was more reliable.

Thank you for the course. Many of the statistical issues I deal with in my job now make a lot more sense!

Since you asked for feedback on Statistics 571 section 35870 online, I thought I would spend a few minutes jotting down some praises, criticisms and otherwise neutral ideas for your consideration.

Praises:

• Lecture presentations were excellent and thoroughly reinforced text book concepts.
• The course made excellent integration of resources available on the web, specifically JAVA applets at the Rice University site.
• The course had a good balance between learning theory and learning the JMP software. I had a graduate level statistics course at another university also in an online environment, and felt that course absolutely neglected theory to concentrate on how to manipulate the software do the statistics.
• UT's particular online synchronous format proved to very cost efficient, (connecting to class through local ISP), and overall moderately robust, (sudden disconnections and microphone problems not withstanding).
• You consistently answered emails and were always willing to take calls from students. This level of access to the professor is highly advantageous to the student (if not burdensome to the professor).

Criticisms:

Many aspects of course administration were not conducive for full time working professionals:

• The 5:00 class time coincides with normal business end of day. This means working professionals must have the flexibility to leave work early or the equipment and access to sign on from work. This same issue applied to scheduled Office Hours.
• The manner in which homework sessions were announced, through email during the middle of the day, made it difficult be prepared. This practice assumes that working professionals have constant access to course email during the day. Many employers discourage the use of corporate email for 'personal' use. Later in the course I often didn't know a homework session was scheduled until 10 minutes before it started, and could not print out my corrected homework for use during the session. Judging from the light homework session attendance, I think this may have been a problem for others too.
• The Homework Buddy concept, at least pairing on-campus buddies with off-campus professionals, did not work at all! My on-campus buddy would seek help from his on campus network, (students that had taken the course previously), and would complete his homework on the day it was due. I sought to complete my homework during the week end or evenings. Homework questions to my buddy mostly went unanswered or were answered during the day they were due, which was too late to be useful.
• (small point) It should be made clear that the homework log web page is subject to change until a unit is actually assigned. I printed out the homework log at the beginning of the course assuming it was correct. I was surprised to learn in week three assignments were altered and problems were unassigned. Perhaps instead of posting the entire homework log for all units at the beginning of the course, homework problems should only be posted as they are assigned.
• The statement of requirements for the course project (paraphrasing "find a dataset and analyze it") was highly ambiguous. While this left open an extremely wide range of possibilities for each student to tailor the project to their specific interest, it provided no basis to help the student decide between alternate project concepts. A more specific statement such as the following would have been more helpful:

"Find or build a dataset that can be used to model the relationship between independent predictors and a dependent outcome. The dataset should contain between 50 and 1000 (or no less than 50) observations with a continuous outcome variable so that a linear model can be developed. It should contain no less than 5 (10?) predictor attributes and include both continuous and categorical variables.
The assignment will require you to submit a 10-15 page report on your selected data applying concepts taught in this course to:
1. Describe each predictor attribute including the relationship between them.
2. Apply techniques to transform continuous or code categorical predictors as appropriate.
3. Develop a minimum of 2 competing linear models.
4. Use model evaluation techniques discussed in class to choose between competing models.
Examples of successful projects from past courses include…"

Neutral Suggestions:

• It would have been nice to have some background on each of the students to put their questions into prospective. At the University of Phoenix, (which operates asynchronously through a email-distribution like system), early in each course students were asked to submit a brief statement to the class including, (as desired): where they are located, course expectations, why they were taking the course, their program and year, the industry they work in and years of experience, areas of responsibility, and personal information (married, # children, etc). These types of introductions help to build depth on otherwise invisible faces. It might also help to increase overall class interaction.
• I would like to have seen more application/practice prospective given in the lectures. For me, this helps to crystallize the concepts by placing them in context. This information could come from those already working in the field. It could also come from students reporting on articles they have seen that relate to the various concepts.
• Never assign homework without at least a weekend before it is due.
• I understand that there is a paradoxical relation between using homework to assess a student's progress and using homework to reinforce introduced concepts. Leaning more towards using homework to reinforce concepts, you may want to consider assigning a greater proportion of the homework from odd numbered problems. Yan did a good job in grading the homework on how a problem was completed (and not just the answer). I often found it useful on odd problems to have the answers available in the back of the book. This sometimes provided additional direction in figuring out how the problem should actually be worked when the text wasn't enough to figure it out.

I hope I haven't said too much. I really did enjoy the course.

This is a challenging course. There is a wide breadth of topics covered in a short period of time; be prepared to work. This is especially challenging if taken in the distance learning environment. It takes discipline to do. The handout notes are beneficial, especially the step by step JMP commands. Dr. Leon has a good sense of humor and doesn't try to let the course be overwhelming. I use many of these methods every day in my job and found the curriculum challenging and enlightening. A very good course all in all.

Instructor's comment: Because of student feedback - below - the number of homework problems was reduced to remove duplication. However, as you can see in the homework log there is still a lot of homework in this course. I consider it necessary to learn to analyze data using the JMP software.

I said that I would send my comments about your lectures but did not do it during my vacation. I hope it is not too late now. I have had a great time in your class. It was intellectually challenging, very well organized, and lots of fun. I learnt a lot in your class. In fact I have learnt not just about statistics but also how to be a good instructor, which is very useful when I teach my own students.

If there is anything that I can make a suggestion on, it might be a smaller load of homework. It took me about 4 to 8 hours to finish each chapter's homework. Maybe a little less work could achieve the same result already.

Thanks a lot for everything and best wishes for the new year,

I recently completed STA 571 (Fall 2001) and would like to make some comments on the course.

First, let me say that the instructor was very good. He was energetic and cared about his students learning. The transparancies used for the notes were very well done and helpful.

My only "complaint" is that the amount of material covered in this class would be better presented over two semesters rather than squeezing it into a single semester. That way more in depth learning of the concepts can be done. This would be especially important since this is the first stats course many folks take at the graduate level.

I have been out of school for a number of years, and so my experience will be different from most of the students. I have a BSEE-UT 1970 and a MSIE-UT 1987

First, I really enjoyed the course, and I looked forward to attending the lectures. The material and the pace of the class was challenging for me. I spent a great deal of out of class time on this course. This was mostly due to having to "catch up" to the level of others in the class. Dr. Leon was very supportive and very concerned that we (students) learn the material. I feel that he is as very good instructor. I feel the class has given me a much deeper understanding of the material I had previously been exposed to, and I learned some new material as well. I believe that I now have a good foundation to enroll in additional Statistics courses.

I highly recommend the course, and Dr. Leon as an instructor to all serious students. Depending on one's Statistics background, it could require a lot of preparation time, but there is much satisfaction in completing the course.

Statistics 571 was an extremely useful and enjoyable course. I was somewhat apprehensive about taking the class since I had never before studied Statistics, but my worry diminished as I realized that the course was presented at a level that even the uninitiated could understand. I would highly recommend it.

I thought we covered entirely too much material. It seems like we zipped through without covering it suitably and thoroughly. Why did we have to do so much? Was it really necessary? I don't think so. It seems like we were in some kind of race or something.

Also, I don't think the homework assignments were reasonable at all. Most of the students were working full-time, full-time students, or both. Those homework assignments took hours and hours to complete! This class was not the only obligation we had! We could have learned the fundamentals of this class without the long homework.

The grader that graded our homework was not so great. If the answer on our paper did not match the answer exactly in the solution manual, we got it counted wrong, usually without explanation. This was very irritating to students to had to prepare for a test. Also, he was not very consistent. I had a minus .5 taken off of one of my homework assignments on a particular problem and a fellow classmate of mine got a minus .3 taken off for the very same offense. This happened a lot. In his defense, he probably graded the homework assignments as fast as he could, because there were so many problems to grade.

Also, it would have been nice if additional materials besides the overhead slides were presented in class. I know the slides to you a very long time to prepare(by the way the JMP screen shots were very helpful), but that information was straight out of the book. We can read the book. We have that resource. Do you have access to relevant examples other than our text? I really wish you worked out so unassigned problems in class. I think that would have been a world of help to the students.

I'm sorry if this is offensive, but that's the way I feel. I hope that this is the kind of feedback that you wanted, albeit not so nice.

"Statistics 571 is a very helpful and useful course. The coverage of such topics as hypothesis testing, analysis of variance and an introduction to regression provide a good foundation for the next level of statistical course work. I am currently taking Statistics 572 (Applied Regression Analysis) and the concepts covered in Statistics 571 have made the transition very easy.

The textbook is very readable and understandable. However, I do have a problem with the author often using very small data sets in the examples, sometimes as small as eight or nine. The author also seems to decline working examples of more difficult concepts. The author does cover the topic of data collection in more detail than others, which I think is a very important topic that should be given more time. All in all, the book is very useful and I am keeping it for a reference.

Dr. Leon was a very good instructor for the course. He was always concerned about the students' understanding of the topic. He used good examples in class to get the point across and he was always available after class for help. Dr. Leon would also have study sessions after homework was returned for anyone that wanted to attend. That was a big help."

This class strengthened many of the skills that I learned in previous classes. The book was excellent, and I appreciated having handouts to go along with each lecture. Some of the material was difficult, especially since a lot of theory is involved, but it was a nice challenge. If I had the choice to take the class again, I would!

As a Chemical Engineer with 10 years experience, the material covered in Statistics 571 has helped my transition back as a full time student in the Statistics Master Program. While the theory behind the concepts was covered in detail, the class was focused on the application of the material and has proven to be an excellent refresher for the rest of the program.

Dr. Leon was very supportive of the students and never hesitated to answer a student’s question, reinterpret misunderstood material, and provide review sessions for upcoming tests.