PS - if you are interested in application of stats, not stat theory, I would not take straight stat classes. Usually if a university has a good Psychology or Education master's or phd program, they have good Methodology classes as part of these majors.

Helen C. Dennis Education Associate Assessment and Analysis Group Delaware Department of Education P.O. Box 1402 Dover, DE 19903-1402 Tel: (302)739-6700 Fax: (302) 739-3092 email: hdennis@doe.k12.de.us

-----Original Message----- From: Monica Perry [mailto:mperry@pitt.k12.nc.us] Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 9:16 AM To: SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: a short survey

Hello Everyone, I was wondering if some of you could help me out. I would like to conduct a non-scientific survey about how you got to be so good at statistics.

I'm almost finished with my master's in public administration with a concentration in policy analysis, and quite frankly I would feel like a fraud if I was every hired to do any kind of in depth analysis. I had an excellent teacher as an undergrad sociology major, but that was a long time ago. In all the graduate level classes I've taken we didn't cover half of what I learned in my undergrad class. I'm wondering if I would be better off taking some undergraduate math based stats classes.

So, for those of you who are around my age (25-35), and obviously haven't been writing SPSS syntax since the early 80's.....how did you learn to do it? I'm just curious to see if any of you are math majors, or if you just were lucky enough to graduate from a good applied social science program. I would like to know if you think your understanding of statistics is based on your level of education (BA/BS, MA, MS, PhD, etc), whether or not you were in a math based program or social science based program (and what department), or if you learned most of what you are using "on the job".

Since this really isn't related to the listserv, I would think replies should be sent only to me, so as not to clog up everyone's in-box. If anyone's interested I can talley up the responses and send out the results in one tidy email later on.

Thank you for your time,

Monica Perry Title 1 Program Specialist Pitt County Schools 1717 West 5th Street Greenville, NC 27834 (252) 752-3227