PUBPOL-812
STATISTICS FOR POLICY MAKERS
Offered Fall 2026
Term
Overview
Feedback is mostly positive. The strongest signal is that teaching clarity stands out. Best for students who want a structured class rather than chaos. The sample is still thin, so treat this as directional rather than definitive.
DepartmentPPS
Terms offeredFall
Typical enrollment30–31
Semesters of data1
5.6
Hrs / week
42
Responses
122
Enrollment
34%
Response Rate
Evaluation Scores
Overall quality
Teaching, content, and experience combined.
4.1
Intellectually stimulating
Challenges students to think deeply.
4.1
Instructor effectiveness
Explains concepts and facilitates learning.
4.3
Difficulty
Higher means harder.
3.5
Feedback Analysis
Feedback Analysislow
Analysis based on student evaluations
Based on 109 comments across 4 sections
Feedback is mostly positive. The strongest signal is that teaching clarity stands out. Best for students who want a structured class rather than chaos. The sample is still thin, so treat this as directional rather than definitive.
Student Reports
How hard is the A?
A is doable but not automatic
The signal here is more do-the-work-and-you-should-be-fine than easy-A chatter. Students do not describe the A as automatic, but the evidence also does not paint grading as punishing.
Homework Load
Moderate homework load
Homework load looks moderate. The recurring signal is steady weekly work, but not a course that turns every assignment into a grind.
Lecture Load
Regular lecture load
Lectures matter here, but the evidence points to a fairly standard lecture burden rather than a course dominated by long or exceptionally dense lectures.
Strengths
• Teaching clarity stands out; students repeatedly say the material is explained clearly and effectively.
Tradeoffs
• There is no single dominant complaint theme, but the feedback is not uniformly glowing either.
Best fit for
Best for students who want a structured class rather than chaos.
Watch out for
• Most of the signal comes from a limited sample, so be careful about over-generalizing.
• A large share of the evidence comes from one instructor's version of the course, so this may not generalize cleanly.
Student Responses
This course helped me develop quantitative analysis skills and coding skills. I think that it really helped me in using data to explain cases of causation and correlation when it comes to comparing relationships between variables.
Fall 2024 · Rangel, Marcos
Application of statistics in the real policy world
Fall 2024 · Rangel, Marcos
Stata
Fall 2024 · Rangel, Marcos
Statistical analysis, hypothesis testing, STATA regression modeling
Fall 2024 · Rangel, Marcos
Basic knowledge of statistics, p-value with all its components, how to make a hypothesis for policy issues
Fall 2024 · Rangel, Marcos
Rating History
Rating history
Error bars show \u00B11 std dev
| Term | Instructor | Overall | Difficulty | Hrs/wk | Enrolled |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall 2024 | Rangel, Marcos | 4.1 | 3.5 | 5.6 | 122 |
Instructor
Also teaches
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