STAT 3510 Final ProjectCSUEB Fall Teaching Faculty and Academic

Calendars

Motivation for our project Due to the fact that CSUEB is changing from a quarter system to a

semester system, we wanted to get a real world sampling of the teaching faculties thoughts on which is a better academic calendar. We thought it would be easier to get a true Simple Random Sample from this population.

We asked them which system they individually prefer and which system they thought benefitted students more.

They were given three choices: semesters, quarters, and no preference.

Methods/ProcedureOur sampling frame was the fall teaching faculty at CSUEB, a total of 804.

We used an online random name generator to sample 300 of them.We sent out an 8 question survey to their CSUEB e-mail account. Two separate e-mails were sent out over the course of two weeks.We received 163 responses back for a response rate of 54.3%, we discarded two of the responses due to completely unusable data, so our final sample size was 161 respondents.

Descriptive StatisticsWhat Academic Calendar do Teaching Faculty Prefer

1. Semester System

The 95% confidence interval for teaching faculty who prefer semester system is (0.288, 0.420)

Thus, we are 95 % confident that between 28.8% and 42% teaching faculty prefer semester system.

2. Quarter System

The 95% confidence interval for teaching faculty who prefer quarter system is (0.403, 0.541)

Therefore, we are 95% confident that between 40.3% and 54.1% teaching faculty prefer quarter system.

3. No preference

The 95% confidence interval for teaching faculty who have no preference of systems is (0.121, 0.227)

Therefore, we are 95% confident that between 12.1% and 22.7% teaching faculty have no preference on specific system either semester or quarter system.

Descriptive Statistics Which Benefits Students : Quarter? Semester? No Preference?

1. Semester System

The 95 % C. I for teaching faculty who said that the semester system benefits students more is (0.325,0.457)

Therefore, we are 95% confident that between 32.5 % and 45.7% teaching faculty say that semester system benefits students more.

2. Quarter System

The 95 % C. I for teaching faculty who said that the quarter system benefits students more is (0.258,0.386)

Thus, we are 95 % confident that between 25.8% and 38.6% of the teaching faculty say that quarter system benefits students more.

3. No Preference

The 95 % C. I for teaching faculty who had no preference for which system benefits students more is (0.230,0.340)

Thus, we are 95% confident that between 23% and 34% teaching faculty have no preference which system will benefit students.

Hypothesis(Likelihood of response by college)Ho:

When looked at by college, there is no significant statistical difference in the probability of getting a response.

Ha:

There is at least one college that is more or less likely to respond to our survey.

College Count of potential Response #s

Count of actual responses

response percentage

Business and Economics

36 18 0.5

Education and Allied Studies

35 19 0.542857143

Letters, Arts and Social Sciences

127 78 0.614173228

Science 102 49 0.480392157

Grand Total 300 164 0.546666667

Table of Values

ResultsAverage response rate is about 53% with a sample standard deviation of about 6%.

It is 95% confident that response rates will be within 44% and 62%.

All of the response rates recorded are within this range so don’t reject Ho.

In other words each college is equally likely to respond to the college or, despite Statistics teachers being counted under Math and thus Science they are no more likely to help out Statistic students than any other teacher.

Hypothesis (College Within CSUEB)Ho: The college within CSUEB that teaching faculty works in makes no difference as to what academic calendar they prefer.

Ha: The college within CSUEB that teaching faculty works in makes a difference as to what academic calendar they prefer.

H0: The college within CSUEB that teaching faculty works in makes no difference as to what academic calendar they think is more beneficial to the students.

Ha: The college within CSUEB that teaching faculty works in makes a difference as to what academic calendar they think is more beneficial to the students.

No preference Quarter Semester Total

College of Business and Economics

43.019

0.31905

88.609

0.04304

66.373

0.02179

18

College of Education and Allied Studies

43.019

0.31905

68.609

0.79051

86.373

0.41556

18

College of Letter, Arts, and Social Sciences

1112.7450.23901

3936.348

0.19352

2626.907

0.03056

76

College of Science 88.217

0.00575

2423.435

0.01363

1717.348

0.00697

49

Total 27 77 57 161

Cell contents: CountExpected countContribution to Chi-Square

Pearson Chi-Square = 3.684. DF = 6, P-Value = 0.719

Chi Square Test: CSUEB College, Benefits the Teacher

No preference Quarter Semester Total

College of Business and Economics

55.143

0.00397

65.814

0.00597

77.304

0.00027

18

College of Education and Allied Studies

75.143

0.67063

45.814

0.56580

77.043

0.00027

18

College of Letters, Arts, and Social Science

2321.7140.07613

2124.5470.51242

3229.7390.17188

76

College of Science 1114.0000.64286

2115.8261.69147

1719.1740.24648

39

Total 46 52 63 161

Chi Square Test: CSUEB College, Benefits for the Students

Cell contents: CountExpected countContribution to Chi-square

Pearson Chi-square = 5.711, DF = 6, P-Value = 0.456

ResultsThere doesn’t seem to be a

difference between the college that the teaching faculty works in and teachers and students benefits in academic calendar.

Therefore we fail to reject the null hypothesis Ho in both situations.

Teaching faculty had about 20 more responses for quarter in terms of benefits for the teachers, and 11 more think that quarter would benefit the students

If we had just semester and quarter, and took out the no preference answer, maybe the data would have changed and caused a preference towards one or the other.

Especially, in the college and benefits students test because there was 46 total no preference responses

Hypothesis (Teaching Title)Ho:The title and rank of the teaching faculty at CSUEB makes no difference as to what system they prefer

Ha: The title and rank of the teaching faculty at CSUEB makes a difference in what system they prefer

Ho: The title and rank of the teaching faculty at CSUEB makes no difference in what system they think is beneficial to the students

Ha: The title and rank of the teaching faculty at CSUEB makes a difference in what system they think is beneficial to the students

Teaching Title vs Personal Preference

Chi-Sq=23.046, DF=6 P-Value=0.001, Reject Null Hypothesis

Full professor Associate professor

Assistant Professor

Adjunct Professor

Total

Quarter 1712.271.820

98.50

0.030

210.867.226

4844.370.297

76

Semester 49.20

2.943

76.37

0.062

178.14

9.634

2933.280.550

57

No Preference 54.52

0.051

23.3130.408

44.00

1716.350.026

28

Total 26 18 23 94 161

Teaching Title vs Student Benefit

Chi-Sq= 23.788; DF= 6; P-Value=0.001, Reject Null Hypothesis

Full Professor Associate Professor

Assistant Professor

Adjunct Professor

Total

Quarter 118.40

0.807

65.81

0.006

27.43

3.967

3330.360.230

52

Semester 610.171.712

107.04

1.241

189.00

9.000

2936.781.647

63

No Preference 97.43

0.332

25.14

1.921

36.57

1.941

3226.860.985

46

Total 26 18 23 94 161

ResultsFrom the data there is a correlation between job title and the type of system they prefer

Since there is a preference we reject Ho

After running pairwise tests, the data shows that full professors show a preference for quarters over semesters, while assistant professors show a strong preference for semesters over quarters, the other two group don’t show a preference.

From the data there is a correlation between job title and the type of system they believe to be beneficial to the students

Since there is a preference we reject Ho

The data shows that overall the teaching faculty believes that semester system is better for the students

The results are more interesting in this comparison because the adjunct professors are almost equally split three ways

Hypothesis (system they have previously taught in)

Ho: There is no difference in the proportion of teaching faculty that have only taught in a quarter system compared to those who have taught in both a quarter and semester system when it comes to what system they prefer.

Ha: There is a difference in the proportion of teaching faculty that have only taught in a quarter system compared to those who have taught in both a quarter and semester system when it comes to the system they prefer

Ho: There is no difference in the proportion of teaching faculty that have only taught in a quarter system compared to those who have taught in both a quarter and semester system when it comes to what system they thinks benefits students.

Ha: There is a difference in the proportion of teaching faculty that have only taught in a quarter system compared to those who have taught in both a quarter and semester system when it comes to the system they think benefits students.

No preference Quarter Semester Total

Taught in only quarter system

1610.61

2.7398

3028.800.0504

1521.60

2.0147

61

Taught in both quarter and

semester system

1217.39

1.6713

4647.200.0308

4235.40

1.2290

100

Total 28 76 57 161

Cell contents: CountExpected countContribution to Chi-Square

Pearson Chi-Square = 7.736 DF = 2, P-Value = 0.021, Reject Null Hypothesis

Chi Square Test: Previous System Taught in, Teaching Faculty Prefers

No preference Quarter Semester Total

Taught in only quarter system

2517.43

3.2892

2019.700.0045

1623.87

2.5945

61

Taught in both quarter and

semester system

2128.57

2.0064

3232.300.0028

4739.13

1.5287

100

Total 46 52 63 161

Cell contents: CountExpected countContribution to Chi-Square

Pearson Chi-Square = 9.480 DF = 2, P-Value = 0.009, Reject Null Hypothesis

Chi Square Test: Previous System Taught in, Benefits Students

ResultsThe null hypothesis was rejected in

both chi square tests of what does teaching faculty prefer and what benefits students when comparing the three responses of no preference, semesters and quarters.

After running pairwise tests on the data to determine what differences actually exist, the only contrast that was shown was between the responses “no preference” and “semesters”

Professors who have taught in both systems show a higher preference for semesters than expected, but a lower no preference response than expected

Professors who have only taught in a quarter system show a higher no response than expected and lower preference for semesters than expected

Even though the null hypothesis was rejected in both cases, there is no evidence that shows an actual difference between the system that is preferred or the one that benefits students

ConclusionsOverall, it appears that CSUEB teaching faculty prefer quarters over semesters, while between 12-22% have no preference.

Overall, it appears that CSUEB teaching faculty think semesters have a slight edge over quarters when it comes to what system benefits students, while between 23 - 34% have no preference.

The college within CSUEB that a professor teaches in does not appear to affect their preference or what they think benefits students.

Assistant professors prefer semesters over quarters and also think semesters benefit students more, we are unsure why. Full professors prefer quarters over semesters, possibly due to the high amount of time they have spent at CSUEB, a quarter system.

More ConclusionsThere is no evidence indicating that the previous system that teaching faculty have been in, has any effect on what system they prefer for themselves or students.

Teaching faculty who have taught only in quarter system probably chose no preference over semesters because they don’t have enough information on semesters.

Teaching faculty who have taught in both systems chose semesters over no preference because they feel strongly about semesters.

The addition of the “no preference” category made some our data more difficult to interpret.

ShortcomingsOur response rate was lower than we wanted, around 53%

Some colleges responded more than others. The College of Letter, Arts, and Social Sciences, and The College of Science had a majority of the responses.

Depending on the rank of the teaching staff, it affected the response rate

If we took out the no preference, then maybe we could have seen a difference in preference.

One of the questions was misunderstood by 20% of the respondents, it could have been worded differently

The survey questions could have been randomized to eliminate bias. The order of the last two questions listed semesters first, then quarters, then no preference.