Most professions these days require more than general intelligence. They require in addition the ability to collect, analyze and think about data. Personal life is enriched when these same skills are applied to problems in everyday life involving judgment and choice. This course presents basic concepts from statistics, probability, scientific methodology, cognitive psychology and cost-benefit theory and shows how they can be applied to everything from picking one product over another to critiquing media accounts of scientific research. Concepts are defined briefly and breezily and then applied to many examples drawn from business, the media and everyday life.
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Mindware: Critical Thinking for the Information Age
Université du MichiganÀ propos de ce cours
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Approx. 13 heures pour terminer
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Compétences que vous acquerrez
Sunk CostsCost–Benefit AnalysisCognitive BiasDecision-MakingData AnalysisStatistical Inference
Dates limites flexibles
Réinitialisez les dates limites selon votre disponibilité.
Certificat partageable
Obtenez un Certificat lorsque vous terminez
100 % en ligne
Commencez dès maintenant et apprenez aux horaires qui vous conviennent.
Niveau débutant
Approx. 13 heures pour terminer
Anglais
Sous-titres : Arabe, Français, Ukrainien, Portugais (européen), Italien, Vietnamien, Allemand, Russe, Anglais, Espagnol
Offert par
Université du Michigan
The mission of the University of Michigan is to serve the people of Michigan and the world through preeminence in creating, communicating, preserving and applying knowledge, art, and academic values, and in developing leaders and citizens who will challenge the present and enrich the future.
Programme du cours : ce que vous apprendrez dans ce cours
1 heure pour terminer
Introduction
Individuals and cultures can make themselves smarter. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, people have become enormously smarter. The Information Age requires a brand-new set of skills involving statistics, probability, cost-benefit analysis, principles of cognitive psychology, logic and dialectical reasoning.
1 heure pour terminer
1 vidéo (Total 15 min), 3 lectures
1 heure pour terminer
Lesson 1: Statistics
Basic concepts of statistics and probability including the concepts of variable, normal distribution, standard deviation, correlation, reliability, validity, and effect size. Concrete examples are drawn from everyday life and show how the concepts can be used to solve ordinary problems.
1 heure pour terminer
2 vidéos (Total 29 min), 2 lectures, 1 quiz
2 heures pour terminer
Lesson 2: The Law of Large Numbers
How to think about events in such a way that they can be counted and a decision can be made about how much data is enough. You will learn about the concept of error variance and how it can be combatted by obtaining multiple observations. Your will learn that your judgments about people’s personalities are prone to serious errors that are largely avoided for judgments about abilities. And you will discover why it’s usually a mistake to interview job applicants.
2 heures pour terminer
2 vidéos (Total 27 min), 2 lectures, 4 quiz
2 heures pour terminer
Lesson 3: Correlation
It can be extremely difficult to make an accurate assessment of how two variables are related to one another; prior beliefs can be more important than data in estimating the strength of a given relationship. You will learn simple tools to estimate degree of association. You will learn about the nature of illusory correlations and how to avoid them. You will learn about the concepts of confounded variable and self-selection error.
2 heures pour terminer
4 vidéos (Total 25 min), 3 lectures, 2 quiz
2 heures pour terminer
Lesson 4: Experiments
You will learn that correlations can only rarely provide conclusive evidence about whether one variable exerts a causal influence on another and why experiments provide far better evidence about causality than correlations. You will be shown how to conduct experiments in business settings and experiments on yourself. You will learn the distinction between within subject designs and between subject designs. You will learn about the concept of artifacts and some tricks for avoiding them. You will learn how to discover natural experiments.
2 heures pour terminer
3 vidéos (Total 42 min), 2 lectures, 1 quiz
1 heure pour terminer
Lesson 5: Prediction
You will learn about the kinds of systematic errors we make when trying to predict the future. You will learn about regression to the mean and why you should assume that extreme values on a variable will be less extreme when next observed. You will learn how to think about observations in terms of true score plus error. You will learn about the concept of base rate and why it must be taken into account when estimating probabilities of specific events.
1 heure pour terminer
2 vidéos (Total 40 min), 2 lectures, 1 quiz
1 heure pour terminer
Lesson 6: Cognitive Biases
We understand the world not through direct perception but through inferential procedures that we are unaware of. Our understanding of the world is heavily influenced by schemas or abstract representations of events. We are prone to serious judgment errors that can be avoided to a degree when we understand their basis. We make guesses about probability and causality by applying the representativeness heuristic based on similarity assessments which can be very misleading. We make judgments about frequency and probability by relying in part on the availability heuristic, judging things as frequent or probable to the degree that instances come readily to mind.
1 heure pour terminer
3 vidéos (Total 36 min), 1 lecture, 2 quiz
1 heure pour terminer
Lesson 7: Choosing and Deciding
How to conduct a cost-benefit analysis. Why you should throw the analysis away after doing it if the decision is personal and very important. How to avoid throwing good money after bad. How to avoid doing something that will prevent you from doing something more valuable. Why it can be expensive to try to avoid the possibility of loss. Why incentives can backfire.
1 heure pour terminer
3 vidéos (Total 38 min), 1 lecture, 2 quiz
2 heures pour terminer
Lesson 8: Logic and Dialectical Reasoning
The distinction between inductive logic and deductive logic. Syllogisms. Conditional reasoning. The distinction between truth of an argument and validity of an argument. The concepts of necessity and sufficiency. Venn diagrams. Common logical errors. When to avoid contradiction and when to embrace it, how to avoid undue certainty about judgments and decisions, and why attention to context rather than form is crucial for analysis of most real-world problems.
2 heures pour terminer
2 vidéos (Total 36 min), 1 lecture, 2 quiz
26 minutes pour terminer
Conclusion
26 minutes pour terminer
1 vidéo (Total 6 min), 3 lectures
Avis
Meilleurs avis pour MINDWARE: CRITICAL THINKING FOR THE INFORMATION AGE
par JM28 juil. 2019
This course is great! I recommend it to anyone who wants to be able to reason better and have more capabilities in making decisions. Thank you Dr. Nisbett and Coursera for providing this course.
par MK7 avr. 2020
Anyone beginner can take this course and be 100 times more understanding of information via any media while also perhaps understanding what is the best choice in some give scenario IRL.
par NP6 août 2017
A very good course prof Richard has explained very difficult to understand concepts in a very simple language and made it easy for students to grasp the subject matter easily.
par P23 déc. 2018
Excellent introduction to basic tools (awareness of some cognitive biases / heuristics, the importance of contextual factors, etc.) for sharpening our minds: It´s a must! :-)
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