Quantitative Reasoning Foundation: Pursuit of Happiness

Introduction

What is Quantitative Reasoning (QR)?

  1. Thinking about data
  2. Thinking with data

Thinking about data

  1. Where can we find it?
  2. How do we collect it?
  3. What do our variables mean?
  4. How can we analyse relationships?
  5. And most importantly, how do we ensure that the data we are using is (relatively) error free, valid, or at the very least, reliable enough?

(These are some important questions that lead our thinking about data, so important that without asking them we cannot move forward to the next part of our QR definition.)

Thinking with data

  1. How is our reasoning about a topic shaped by new and existing data?
  2. What new hypotheses we can generate from the data we have collected?
  3. What insights can we identify from our analysis? (Not guaranteed, if we are lucky, our hypotheses can lead to insights.)
  4. Can we communicate these insights to shape our or others’ decision-making?
  5. Thinking with data is an iterative process, to begin this iterative process YOU have to connect a topic of interest to new and existing data.

Organisation

Organisation

Enabling the QR Experience: Getting started (hands on)

  1. Identify your interest: we are looking at happiness, not rocket science, curiosity should be easy!
  2. Connect your interest to a data set: look for data, levels of aggregation, variables of interest. If it does not exist, can we collect it? We live in the world of big data, a world with endless data sets that can generate infinite questions. If you can ask, I will help you answer.
  3. How to source your own data:
    1. Finding/collecting a valid or reliable data set
    2. Cleaning data set (to ensure it is fit for purpose)
    3. Curating data set (which may include linking its variables to other data sets from other sources)
  4. Identify your abilities: That really is up to you, the student. Some of you may come from a computer science background and have already amassed a good technical toolkit, others may be math or statistics majors and much of the analysis we learn will be rudimentary, as an Arts student may find reading and writing your strong suit. Our goal together will be to supplement the abilities you need to ask the questions you want to answer. This may require improving your ability in any number of ways

      Note: Collecting, cleaning, curating data and hypothesis generation is a huge part of QR and this is where critical thinking and reasoning come into play. I will therefore expect YOU the student to do this, not me, as it is where the student’s “quantitative reasoning experience” really starts.

      Facilitating the QR experience

          1. Skills needed: As mentioned in 4d, students will need e.g. some of the technical ability of a computer scientist, the analytical ability of statistician, and the Arts ability to communicate insight clearly and meaningfully to others.  Like a writer needs to use a pen and understand the certainty of his/her argument, we need a computer, a software tool, and some analytical understanding.
          2. Outlets to learn and hone relevant skills: I will act as a facilitator here. I will provide you with free access to CodeAcademy tutorials, free student access to Tableau software, and several video playlists I have curated that I think are effective tools for understanding statistical analysis.
          3. Research: to connect the technical and the analytical to the topic of interest; building our understanding of the topic of interest through news, studies, and research that connects happiness to data. To effectively facilitate this, I use Slack as the main communication tool, followed by F2F consultations.
          4. Co-creating content together: I have found Medium as an accessible tool for this, but discussion in class may come from any sources.

      Note: Of course our classroom will be the venue where we host discussions about technical, analytical, and topical issues, so you are not alone in thinking about and with data, but again, I cannot do the thinking for you – I expect my students to be engaged especially on their interest and curiosity (I will guide and supplement your technical and analytical ability), and to have the courage to create their own content and learn from one another openly.

      Syllabus

      Syllabus

      This is an unstructured module. If you are the primary spark in developing your own reasoning, I promise that you will incorporate this reasoning into everything you do. I can no more separate quantitative reasoning from my thoughts and decisions than the writer and critical thinker can divorce logical arguments and clear communication. Therefore we will develop our quantitative reasoning in an organic way, which will allow you to learn everything you need to apply quantitative reasoning in the real world. I look forward to being your guide on this personal journey. One we are lucky enough to take together at USP.

      Assessments

      Assessments

      Evaluating and measuring students’ learning

            1. Ability to ask meaningful questions of data (hypothesis generation and forming insights). The questions you generate are an incredible insight into your reasoning and your ability to reason quantitatively.
            2. I will monitor your technical, analytical, and topical research progress, keeping track of the tutorials you complete, data sets you use, visualizations you create, analysis you perform at regular intervals, and provide feedback and facilitate ways forward for you.
            3. Reinforce the importance of working together, yet being unique in one’s personal learning journey via your participation in and outside class.

      Unique questions = unique data = more unique questions = unique analysis = unique findings

      Basic Reading List

      Basic Reading List

      A Medium subscription is required for this class as we will co-create our reading content together.

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