Statistics in Action: Explore a Successful Service-Learning Project Presented by Mary DeHart, Ed.D Professor of Mathematics Sussex County Community College.

Statistics in Action: Explore a Successful

Service-Learning Project

Presented by Mary DeHart, Ed.D

Professor of MathematicsSussex County Community College

34th Annual AMATYC Conference

November 20, 2008

What is a service-learning project?

A service-learning project is one in which students provide a service to their community while utilizing skills and knowledge that are relevant to their college courses.

This presentation will include:

A brief description of how the Pulse of Sussex County Service Learning Project began, and of the initial structure of the project

Examples of published surveys

Step-by-step details of how the current project is conducted

A discussion of how the project helps students to learn and understand Statistics

The Pulse of Sussex CountyService Learning Project

Began in 2003

Involves the cooperation of SCCC students, faculty, administration, and the New Jersey Herald Newspaper

Sussex County, NJ: Population 153,384Sussex County Community College

Enrollment: 3,732

The Pulse of Sussex County Project

Initial Goals

Give a voice to county residents

Build stronger ties between the college and the community

Provide Statistics students with the opportunity to see statistics in action.

The Project Begins

Meeting with The NJ Herald

Forming the Pulse of Sussex County Committee

Planning Survey Design

Deciding on the level of student involvement

Role of Statistics Professor

Recruit and train students

Supervise collection of survey topics and questions

Distribute topics and questions to committee members

Help to supervise survey process

Role of Students

Brainstorm survey topics

Formulate unbiased questions

Conduct surveys

Role of Pulse of Sussex County Committee

Review topics suggested by students

Select topics for surveys

Review and fine-tune unbiased questions

Role of SCCC Department of Institutional Research

Prepare survey forms

Help to monitor survey process

Record and analyze data

Present report to the New Jersey Herald

Challenges

Obtaining a random sample of Sussex County residents

Finding phones for students to use

Analyzing data in a timely fashion

October 2003The First Two Surveys

TopicsThe NJ Bear Hunt

The War in Iraq

41 Students Participated

370 Surveys Completed

The New Jersey Bear HuntPublished November 30, 2003

Questions

Have you ever seen a bear in

Sussex County?

Yes 91%

No 9%

The New Jersey Bear HuntPublished November 30, 2003

Have you ever seen a

destructive act by a bear?

Yes 30.7%

No 69%

The New Jersey Bear HuntPublished November 30, 2003

Questions

Has the presence of bears in the

county changed your behavior?

Yes 37.4%

No 61.2%

The New Jersey Bear HuntPublished November 30, 2003

Do you believe that there are

too many bears in Sussex County?

Yes 48.6%

No 42.4%

The New Jersey Bear HuntPublished November 30, 2003

Should there be a bear hunt

in New Jersey?

Yes 43.6%

No 44.4%

First Iraq War Survey Published: 12/15/03Sadam Hussein Captured: 12/13/03

OverdevelopmentPublished February 15, 2004

Immigration Published August 8, 2004

Upcoming Presidential Election Published August 29, 2004

Improvements

25 new phone lines installed, 25 phones purchased so that calls can be made from one location

List of randomly generated residential phone numbers purchased

Sports Published October 3, 2004

Sports Survey: Graphs and Results of

Follow-Up Interviews

VacationsPublished November 21, 2004

2004 Presidential ElectionPublished November 14, 2004

Bear Hunt Follow-UpPublished December 22, 2004

Iraq War Follow-UpPublished December 22, 2004

DietingPublished January 5, 2005

Social Security Published May 15, 2005

Cigarette SmokingPublished July 3, 2005

Third Anniversary of the Start of the Iraq WarPublished March 19, 2006

TattoosPublished April 27, 2007

Do You Have Any Tattoos?

Students Community

Yes29.0%

No71.0%

Yes14.5%

No85.8%

Do you have any tattoos?

Students n = 183

Communityn = 379

16.1%

40.6%

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

25.0%

30.0%

35.0%

40.0%

45.0%

Male Female

Yes

0.00%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

25.00%

30.00%

35.00%

40.00%

45.00%

Males Females

Series1

Quality of Life SurveyPublished January 29, 2006

Cell Phone UsagePublished February 27, 2007

New Jersey State Budget Crisis

Published June 1, 2008

Quality of Life in Sussex CountyPublished March 16, 2008

2008 Presidential ElectionPublished October 26, 2008

Pulse of Sussex County ProjectionsCompared to

Actual Election Results

Election Results in Sussex CountyJohn McCain 59.5%

Barack Obama 39.0%

Current Project: Trend Data from the Quality of Life SurveyExample: Would you say that, compared to one year ago, the overall economy in the Sussex County region today is better, about the same, or worse?

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

2005 2006 2007 2008

Better

About the Same

Worse

Current Structure of Project

Typically 75-100 Statistics students work on the project each semester.

Students are awarded 100 points of credit for the project: 20 points for generating topics and formulating questions, and 80 points for making phone calls.

A Step-by-Step Look at the Survey Process

Statistics students brainstorm topics.

Professor submits list of topics to the NJ Herald and the SCCC Department of

Institutional Research

NJ Herald Editor, Institutional Researcher, and Professor discuss and select 2 topics per survey session.

Students formulate 5 or 6 unbiased questions per survey topic.

Editor, Institutional Researcher, and Professor review questions and edit if necessary.

Survey forms are prepared by the Department of Institutional Research

Professor or Institutional Researcher present the survey to the students and provide a short training session.

Surveys are conducted on three consecutive evenings from 6:30 – 8:45 PM.

The Professor and the Institutional Researcher supervise the students. Each student is required to work one evening.

Department of Institutional Research scans form and compiles a report to send to the Professor and the NJ Herald.

NJ Herald publishes articles.

The report and the articles are discussed with the students.

The Pulse of Sussex CountyChanges and Challenges

No more committee

Scanning software facilitates data entry

SCCC Journalism students helped with the reporting on the 2008 Presidential survey

Honors Statistics students will begin to help with the analysis of data during the spring 2009 semester

Benefits of the Project for Teaching and Learning

Students learn the challenges of collecting sample data

They have an experiential context in which to place statistical concepts such as sampling techniques design of surveys formulation of unbiased questions sample size confidence intervals margin of error etc.

The 39 surveys that have been completed for the Pulse of Sussex County Project would not have been possible without the help of more than 600 SCCC Statistics students and the following people:

Dr. Bradley Gottfried, former SCCC President

Bruce Tomlinson, General Manager, New Jersey Herald

Chris Frear, Editor, New Jersey Herald

Rob Schmicker, former SCCC Institutional Researcher

Matthew Miller, SCCC Associate Director of Institutional Research

Jo-Ann Harby, SCCC Department of Institutional Research

All Pulse of Sussex County Reports submitted to the New Jersey Herald were produced by the SCCC Department of Institutional Research.

Thank you for your attention.

Mary [email protected]

(973) 300-2341