Title III Equipment Mini-Grants

Equipment (software) Grant

Initial Progress Report

Submitted by: Ihsuan Li

Business and Economics Department

3-31-2006

In the Fall of 2005 I submitted a software proposal and was awarded an equipment grant to purchase the statistical software STATA.

As stated in the grant proposal, the purchase of the software would impact mainly three courses I teach: ECO220 (Statistical Methods), ECO330 (Econometrics), and EDU513 (Data Analysis). In addition to those three courses, I am planning to use this software in EBA610 (Quantitative Methods for EMBA) too.

Midway thru October 2005, CIR procured and installed 16 basic student version 8 of STATA licenses in the Library CIS desktop computers (and one in the faculty desktop computer). There was no need for additional technical support. The software licenses came with basic documentation that were placed on perpetual reserve in the library for ECO220, ECO396 (and perhaps extend it to include EDU513, EBA610). It is open for any students to borrow but not check out of the library.

This software has impacted 19 students since October 2005 (5 students in ECO396.01, 6 in ECO220.70, and 8 in EBA610), in addition it will also impact students taking ECO220, and EDU513 in Summer 2006. The projected number of students impacted is 50 per year.

From the student evaluation of STATA in classroom, there is no doubt that they benefited in no small amount in learning the course material. The ECO396.01 students will continue with their studies or go into the workplace with one advantage: having a practical experience running statistical software that is becoming the most popular in the financial industry. I strongly believe the students in ECO220 and EBA610 will all see the benefits of acquiring a technical skill that is in demand in highly competitive industries. Especially for those students already in the workplace and those gearing towards graduate studies, learning STATA can only help them compete against others for scarce resources.

Summary of student evaluation in ECO396.01 (Econometrics) in Fall 2005

(See attached the actual evaluations for student comments)

As stated in the proposal, an evaluation of student learning using the software was administered at the end of Fall 2005. This evaluation was provided to the students registered in ECO396.01 in Fall 2005. The evaluation was administered concurrently with the faculty teaching evaluation at the end of the semester. The evaluation form was approved by the Department Chair. There were 5 students registered in that course. There are 5 student evaluations.

STATA was required in the course. It was an integral part of this applied econometrics course on regression analysis. As planned, it took about half of class time in learning to use the software, program, read off output, and to understand the practical impact of the regression models taught. Sample programs, class exercises using the software, HW assignments, and sample outputs were all posted on the course website.

All students reported the use of the software made their learning more visual, easier and more efficient (less hours). Since the course was highly technical, it was taught mainly by lectures on board, followed by learning to program the software to write up a computer regression model, followed by interpretation of output. As with any computer software, the learning curve was fairly steep, but it leveled off quickly.

The software copies were installed in 15 computers in CIS room in the library. Students who needed to run the software had to make explicit request to the librarian to access CIS room, when it was not in use. It was highly inconvenient to the students. There was no other suitable place to install the licenses since we do not have a 24-hours computer lab. Ideally, the software would be installed in every laptop owned by students (not a feasible option); the second best option is to install them where students can access the computer most time the library/lab center is open. This sentiment is echoed by all students.