Statistical Consulting Unit

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Statistics textbook

The Statistical Consulting Unit (SCU) in the Quantitative Methods and Special Education program is a statistical consulting service primarily available to students who are taking, or have taken statistics courses in Quantitative Methods, and to faculty in the School of Education (SOE). The SCU is available when classes are in session during the Fall and Spring terms.

The SCU provides statistical advice and assistance with short-term statistical analysis to students, researchers and faculty. This includes assistance with designing experiments, studies and surveys, as well as analyzing data, related to master's theses, doctoral dissertations, and faculty research.

The SCU seeks to develop collaborative research efforts and promote cross-disciplinary interaction between SOE faculty and students, as well as their counterparts in other disciplines.

Wham 229
Email: StatConsUnit@siu.edu
SCU Coordinator: Dr. Rhonda Kowalchuk

Hardware and software

The SCU is equipped with nine computers, which have a number of statistical and measurement software including:

  • SAS
  • SPSS
  • LISREL
  • Mathematica
  • MATLAB
  • Minitab
  • R
  • S-Plus
  • PARSCALE
  • BILOGMG
  • TESTFACT
  • S-Plus
  • MULTILOG
  • Assessment Systems
  • HLM
  • G Power
  • Fortran Power Station

The SCU was recently renovated to include additional accessibility for students with disabilities. Some of the accessibility features include a height-adjustable workstation and a 30-inch monitor with magnification software.

Who may use this service?

SCU services are available to faculty, students and researchers in the SOE and to students who are currently enrolled or have previously taken statistics courses in the Quantitative Methods and Special Education program.

How do I arrange an appointment?

The SCU assistance schedule is posted outside Wham 229, the location of the SCU. For an appointment, email the SCU at StatConsUnit@siu.

What should I bring to the appointment?

The majority of the initial appointment is typically spent describing (in non-statistical terms) your project/research to the statistician and the particular aspects with which you may need assistance. Please bring the following materials to your first consulting session:

  • samples of questionnaires or any forms used for data collection
  • some or all of the raw data (if possible)
  • research questions or relevant portions of proposal or prospectus
  • copies of any preliminary descriptive analyses of your data, including graphics (scatterplots, histograms, etc.)

What to expect?

Appointments are scheduled to last an hour (although many appointments use only a portion of that time) and are held in the SCU (Wham 229). Most clients will require more than a single appointment since statistical consulting is an iterative process.

Policies of the Statistical Consulting Unit

The following policies relate to the types and limits of assistance clients may expect to receive in the SCU.

  1. A maximum of three (3) hours of consultation will be provided by the consulting personnel per client per calendar year (a client's calendar year begins with the first appointment).
  2. Consultation will be on an appointment basis only.
  3. Levels of statistical computing assistance are limited to the following:
    1. For clients who have not yet completed QUAN 402 or QUAN 506, assistance will be provided only for description of data. For Example: Frequency Counts, Percentages and Histograms.
    2. For clients with QUAN 402 or the equivalent, assistance will be provided in using and interpreting descriptive statistics, simple linear regression, t-test, chi-square, and one-way ANOVA.
    3. For clients with QUAN 506 or the equivalent, assistance will be provided along the lines of (b) above, in addition to post-hoc and planned comparisons.
    4. For clients with QUAN 507 or the equivalent, assistance will be provided along the lines of (c) above, plus multiple regression with categorical or continuous variables, factorial ANOVA, curve fitting and repeated measures.
  4. It is assumed that all clients know how to use at least one statistical computing package such as SAS or SPSS. All clients will be responsible for running their own computer jobs, even though a considerable amount of programming assistance may be provided by the SCU.
  5. Levels of statistical design assistance are limited to the following:
    1. Advice on experimental design.
    2. Advice on preparation of data.
    3. Advice regarding use of Unix statistical software packages.
    4. Interpretation of computer output.

Note: The Statistical Consulting Unit is not a tutoring service.