STA110B ABSTRACTS OF STUDENT PROJECTS

This page contains abstracts of some of the class projects for STA110B. Research questions were formulated and pursued by each group independently. Contribution of abstracts to this page is optional. Abstract are posted in the order they were received.

Does the Duke Curriculum 2000 lead to job search satisfaction? Fiza Abu Bakar, Jim Blair, and Kathy Wen
We attempted to find out if there was a relationship between the number of courses seniors have taken in each area of knowledge and their job search success. We tried to measure job search success through students' subjective ratings of their satisfaction with how their job searches have gone. We measured the number of courses by having students check whether they had "0," "1," or "2 or more" courses in each area of knowledge. Much to our surprise, our study suggested that students with 1 or less courses in any given area of knowledge tend to feel more satisfied with their job searches than students with 2 or more courses. We believe this is mostly due to students with more courses having higher expectations entering their job searches, leading to feelings of less satisfaction in spite of similar job search success. Also, factors other than the numbers of courses taken affect job search success. For example, personal characteristics, past work experience, and grades affect job search success.

Upperclassmen, underclassmen Curriculum 2000 Jorge de la Guardia and Lopa Patel
Our project focused on the levels of knowledge among the different classes about the Curriculum 2000. After conducting our study our results were that most of the student body has very little knowledge of what the proposal is about. The interesting fact is that Freshmen and Sophomores seem to know more about the Curriculum 2000 than Juniors and Seniors which led us to conclude that this is because the proposal will not affect the Juniors and Seniors, whereas the Freshmen and Sophomores will actually see the proposal implemented so they tend to be more informed about it.

Student opinion regarding the Curriculum 2000 Foreign Language Requirement Hilliard Hardman Chip Hodgkins and Tad Lehmann
The new Curriculum 2000 ensures that no student can avoid taking foreign language classes. We devised a study to evaluate how current Trinity students feel about this proposed change. We surveyed both students that take foreign language classes at Duke and students that plan to avoid this subject area. In general, the opinions of these two groups were largely indifferent to the new Curriculum 2000 requirements. However, those who do take foreign language classes at Duke are more likely to support the new curriculum than students who do not take these classes.

Curriculum 2000 versus Current Curriculum:
Preference of writing/reading intensive majors versus mathematical intensive majors Adam Leikensohn
My study addressed the question of whether people who pursue writing/reading intensive majors (religion, history, English majors in my study) prefered the proposed curriculum to the current curriculum as compared to the people who pursue mathematical intensive majors (mathematics, physics, and chemistry majors in my study). I hypothesized that writing/reading intensive majors would prefer the proposed curriculum because it seems to me to be very writing/reading intensive. I also hypothesized that that mathematical intensive majors would prefer the current curriculum because it seems to be less writing/reading intensive. The results of my study disproved my hypothesis. Both writing/reading intensive and mathematical intensive majors preferred the current curriculum. Mathematical intensive majors showed a stronger preference for the current curriculum than the writing/reading intensive majors, however.

Curriculum 2000:
Two facets and their possible ramifications in the admission process Scott Meisler

I felt that I had chosen a valid project when I read the headline from The Chronicle this morning. The lead article discussed changes made in the final proposal in the Curriculum 2000 report.

Mr project posed two questions to two different groups of high school juniors in order to examine the effects of the Curriculum 2000 changes on the application decisions of high school juniors. The groups of students came from a high school in Coral Springs, FL and the other from Gadsden, AL--two areas of starkly contrasting socio-economic breakdowns.

The two questions were:

First, would the fact that the new curriculum will require you to take an extra class for four semesters of school unless you enter with Advanced Placement credits affect your decision to apply to Duke?

Second, would the requirements that you take at least four classes in the areas of Mathematics and Science, Foreign language, Civilizations, and Social Sciences affect your decision to apply to Duke?

I do not want to be too detailed in this email, so I will just say the following: a brief summary, in words, of the results. For the first question, the students in the Florida sample were less likely to be discouraged in applying by the increase in required courses. The majority of both populations, however, indicated that the increase would indeed affect their decision-making process. For the second question, large numbers of both groups indicated that the core curricular requirements would not affect their decision. However, a larger percentage of the Alabama sample indicated as such. As this is an observational study, it is hard to make rigid inferences from the data, so I have tried to avoid doing so, offering only suggestions below and in the numerical analysis that follows.

Curriculum 2000 and athlete's decision to attend Duke McRae Elizabeth Miller et al
Our project was designed to determine whether or not Curriculum 2000 would affect an athlete's decision to attend Duke. We surveyed 54 athletes on campus and discovered that the probablity that an athlete would still attend Duke despite Curriculum 2000 was 77.6%.

Curriculum 2000: Underclassmen vs. Upperclassmen Opinions David Morris, Daniel Wolfson, and Jay Stahl
In this project, we sampled a well-informed subset of the Duke population, Duke Student Government, and this subset was separated into two groups, upperclassmen, comprised of current juniors and seniors, and underclassmen, composed of sophomores and freshmen. We attempted to expose a discernable difference, if any, of opinions regarding support of the Curriculum 2000 proposal among the two groups. After evaluating responses to a survey that was issued to the two groups, there seems to be a difference of opinions between the two subsets. Underclassmen generally indicated disagreement with the intentions of the Curriculum 2000 proposal, thus favoring the current model. Upperclassmen, on the other hand, seemed to hold favorable attitudes to the Curriculum 2000 proposal.

The effect of a Foreign language requirement on the distribution of GPA's at Duke University Sid Prabhu and Sreek Vemulapalli
We studied the effect that the foreign language requirement in C2000 would have on the grade distribution at Duke. Since the people who currently take foreign languages are probably better at them than those who don't, we can expect that the average grade will decrease and the spread of the grades will increase. We created a model and tested three new distributions, a 10% decrease in the mean coupled with a 10% increase in the standard deviation, and likewise with 20% and 30%. Statistically speaking, none of the three models could disprove the hypothesis that there would be no change in the distribution of grades after the implementation of Curriculum 2000. This seems to make sense because our data showed that foreign language grades are, and will continue to be, a small percentage of the overall number of grades given out at Duke.

Who Cares??
Curriculum 2000 and quality of education Ken Collins, Niels Peetz-Larsen, and Jason Barnhill
We set out to explore how Duke students felt Curriculum 2000 would affect the quality of education that Duke offers. We decided to investigate the difference in the sentiments of freshmen versus those of upperclassmen. We surveyed 35 freshmen and 35 upperclassmen (being careful to accurately simulate the actual Duke population), and asked them how they thought the proposal would affect the Duke education. We asked them to rate it on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 representing a strong negative effect and 10 representing a strong positive effect. Contaray to the Null Hypothesis (under which d=0 is included in the 95% probability interval), we found that freshmen indeed viewed Curriculum 2000 more favorably than upperclassmen, although neither group demonstrated a strong positive/negative opinion. The freshmen mean rating was 6.2 and that of upperclassmen was 5.5, suggesting that there exists a real relationship between the time a student has spent at Duke and there opinion concerning the effect of Curriculum 2000 upon the quality of education at Duke University.

C2000 and language requirement Steve Sentner and Bill Morris
For our project, we surveyed 30 friends about the C2000 language requirement, made some conditional relationships and used Bayes rule to determine such things as the probability of whether students would be in favor of C2000 if they omitted foreign language and also the probability of whether they would take action against C2000 if they were to be affected by it (even though they aren't).

Are students informed about Curriculum 2000 Jon Cowan and Ricardo Martello
The goal of our study was to try to find an estimate of how well informed on the Curriculum 2000 Duke students feel. Along with this we also want to learn where this information is coming from and determine which medium is most effective in informing the student body of Curriculum 2000. We selected the Chronicle, Administrators/Advisors, Faculty, Friends, Other publications, Info Sessions, and Other as our possible media. The effectiveness of the media was rated 0 to 10, 10 being most informed. The data was then compared by medium.

Potential effects on GPA as a result of Curriculum 2000 Gabe Tsuboyama, Greg Kidder, Stephen Hsu
We investigated potential effects on GPA as a result of Curriculum 2000. Our project design was to construct two hypothetical curricula for an economics major pursuing the BS degree and to focus specifically on how the new mandates for areas of knowledge would affect GPA. We found that because C2000 did not allow for the omission of any areas of knowledge (unlike the current curriculum, which allows for the omission of one area of knowledge) students were forced to take classes which were relatively harder. For our hypothetical courses of study, the C2000 GPA was .02 lower than the current curriculum GPA. While we noted that we made several assumptions in terms of course selection, and that our sample of courses and mean GPA may not be indicative of the rest of the population, we still hold that the average GPA after C2000 will be lower than what it would be under the current curriculum.

Can Curriculum 2000 coexist with a high level of varsity sports? Jessica Bell
The theme of this report was spurred by an article in The Chronicle on Oct. 25th. This article iterated the concerns of the Athletic Dep. with Regards to the porposed Curriculum 2000 if it incorporated two specific conditions; one, instead of 34 credits, students would need 36, and two, the required election of foreign language and math courses. Because of this concern I was sure that there was reason to investigate. According to the results, the majority of the athletes surveyed would reconsider their decision to come to Duke under the new proposed curriculum. This data does not indicate the extent of damage that would result from the implementation of Curriculum 2000, but it does give enough evidence to prove there is reason to worry because athltics will be affected in some magnitude.

Curriculum 2000: Do we really know what it's all about? Nick Romano and Brandon Yarckin
Our test was designed to find out three things, whether or not Duke students felt informed of the new Curriculum, and to see whether this varied within male vs. female populations and lower vs. upperclassmen populations. Our findings showed that the majority of Duke students feel poorly informed about the new Curriculum. A gap in the sense of informedness existed between males and females, with males being less informed than females. A gap in the sense of informedness also existed between upper and lower classmen, with lower classmen being more informed than upper classmen. This study serves to show that the student body is not kept updated on the changes in curriculum or lacks interest in the issue at all. If this curriculum is designed for the student body, something should be done to increase the populations awareness and/or raise interests.

Effects of Curriculum 2000 on students relative to to nomber of AP credits Christine Brusato, Emily Lukas, and Christopher Shih
When analyzing the proposal for Curriculum 2000, we felt there were flaws in the requirements that would create disparity among students based on the number of AP credits accumulated in High School. We wanted to survey a random population of students to figure out the impact of this new Curriculum on future matriculating students. Our hypothesis is that those with less than two AP credits will have to take a relatively greater amount of summer or overload semesters versus those with greater or equal than two AP credits with the new curriculum. To accomplish our goal, we randomly distributed 136 surveys to students in Trinity College. We found our hypothesis that those with less than two AP credits will have to take a relatively greater amount of overload semesters versus those with greater or equal than two AP credits with the new curriculum to be supported by the data. However, our hypothesis that the number of summer classes taken by students under the new curriculum would vary with the number of AP credits taken was not supported by the data. Hence, those students with fewer than 2 AP credits will be forced to endure relatively more overload semesters under the new curriculum than those with 2 or more AP credits under the new curriculum while the number of student AP credits has little influence on the number of summer classes taken under Curriculum 2000.

Approval rate of males and females Joshua David Lemaitre
My project is a study on the approval rate of males and females in the duke community. I am hoping that i will be able to affirm that yes indeed there is a substantial difference between the two because that way, I might be able to make inferences as to the relative ambition of the two different sexes.

Relation between support for Curriculum 2000 and AP credit Clayton Scott
I composed and distributed a questionnaire to examine the relation between support for Curriculum 2000 and AP credit. My hypothesis that people with AP credit when entering duke were more likely to support the plan than those without AP credits was supported by the data, while it was also found that underclassmen were more familiar and more supportive of the plan.

Curriculum 2000's Effect on Study Abroad David Neveloff and Pam Keeney
For our project we surveyed Duke students to find out the effect of Curriculum 2000's foreign language requirement on study abroad rates. We assumed that the study abroad rate under Curriculum 2000 would increase but we were surprised by the results. There was over a 23% increase in students who would study abroad under the new Curriculum. The results show that the University must prepare to make necessary changes in housing, scheduling and registration practices.

Faculty support for Curriculum 2000 Chris Reedy, Joe Lewis, and Yeo Jin Chun
The goal of this study was to determine which components of Curriculum 2000 are supported by the faculty and whether a change in the current curriculum is truly necessary. Thus, members of Duke�s faculty were asked if they supported the credit increase, the proposed restructuring of the knowledge categories, the foreign language requirement, the need for change, and the Curriculum 2000 proposal overall. The conclusions of the study show that the faculty has mixed views concerning Curriculum 2000 and often that the humanities and quantitative departments� views are polarized on several of the components of Curriculum 2000. Overall, about half of the faculty supported the credit increase and the restructuring of the knowledge categories. On both these questions, the humanities departments were clearly in support of both the credit increase and the restructuring, yet the quantitative departments were more opposed. The proposal for the foreign language requirement was highly favored by both departments and both types of departments do support the general movement for a curriculum change. Yet, faculty support of the Curriculum 2000 proposal overall was inconclusive with roughly half in favor and half opposed.

Student's opinions about areas of knowledge Al Gilberti
I did an analysis of the areas of knowledge required under the current system versus that of the proposed Curriculum 2000. I randomly surveyed students for their opinion on how many areas (given the current six) should be required, and constructed models to determine which system they preferred (if any). Based on my analysis, I determined that it is clear that students do not have a strong preference either way. Al Gilberti

Increased knowledge and students' opinion of Curriculum 2000 Akosua Asamoah, Mychal Harrison, Dana Williams
We decided to design a study that addressed the question of whether or not an increased knowledge regarding the mechanics and implications of the proposal would have any affect on students' opinion of Curriculum 2000. Before any additional information, six females thought that Curriculum 2000 was a good idea and the remaining nine thought it was a bad idea. After they were given the information, the numbers changed to ten for and five against C 2000. Eight males thought C 2000 was a good idea when responding to question two, but only four males answered question three in the affirmative. We can attribute the 26% increase in females who support Curriculum 2000 to the fact that women probably see C 2000 as a means by which they can close the gender inequalities and gain an upper hand in the work force. The 27% decrease in males who support C 2000 could be a result of the fact that as sports fans, they are likely to feel that C 2000 will hinder Duke�s ability to gain top recruits.

Faculty opinion of Curriculum 2000 Betty Tao and Marla Malluk
Our project consisted of obtaining faculty opinions over Curriculum 2000 based on which Area of Knowledge the professor taught in. We split all the departments in Trinity college into the current six Areas of Knowledge (NS, AL, CZ, QR, FL, SS) and emailed surveys to random professors within each of the six Areas. The survey question was: "If you had to vote on the Curriculum 2000 Proposal in its present state would you vote for or against it?" The only options were 'yes' or 'no' and we provided a brief summary of the proposed new curriculum and the website of the entire proposal. Using statistical tools we analyzed the results in each Area of Knowledge and compared them with each other and with the entire sample of professors.

Examining Sentiment of the Foreign Language Requirement Of Curriculum 2000, Based on Major George Vlahakos and Will McMullan
The goal of our project was to examine whether or not there was stronger feeling of sentiment about the proposed foreign language requirement by science related majors than humanities related majors. We hypothesized that the science related major5 would be more opposed to the proposed requirement than the humanities related major. By using the Chi Squared method of analysis, we found that there was no significant difference in feeling about the requirement and thereby disproved our hypothesis. Both groups seem to have similar preferences regarding the issue.