About this Course

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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.
What kinds of things will you learn? Why it’s usually a mistake to interview people for a job. Why it’s highly unlikely that, if your first meal in a new restaurant is excellent, you will find the next meal to be as good. Why economists regularly walk out of movies and leave restaurant food uneaten. Why getting your picture on the cover of Sports Illustrated usually means your next season is going to be a disappointment. Why you might not have a disease even though you’ve tested positive for it. Why you’re never going to know how coffee affects you unless you conduct an experiment in which you flip a coin to determine whether you will have coffee on a given day. Why it might be a mistake to use an office in a building you own as opposed to having your office in someone else’s building. Why you should never keep a stock that’s going down in hopes that it will go back up and prevent you from losing any of your initial investment. Why it is that a great deal of health information presented in the media is misinformation.

Flexible deadlines

Reset deadlines in accordance to your schedule.

Shareable Certificate

Earn a Certificate upon completion

100% online

Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.

Beginner Level

Approx. 13 hours to complete

English

Subtitles: Arabic, French, Ukrainian, Portuguese (European), Italian, Vietnamese, Korean, German, Russian, English, Spanish

Skills you will gain

Sunk Costs
Cost–Benefit Analysis
Cognitive Bias
Decision-Making
Data Analysis
Statistical Inference

Flexible deadlines

Reset deadlines in accordance to your schedule.

Shareable Certificate

Earn a Certificate upon completion

100% online

Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.

Beginner Level

Approx. 13 hours to complete

English

Subtitles: Arabic, French, Ukrainian, Portuguese (European), Italian, Vietnamese, Korean, German, Russian, English, Spanish

Instructor

Instructor rating

4.82/5 (268 Ratings)

Richard E. Nisbett

Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished University Professor

Department of Psychology

62,010 Learners

1 Course

Syllabus - What you will learn from this course

Content Rating97%(5,644 ratings)

Week

1

Week 1

1 hour to complete

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 hour to complete

1 video (Total 15 min), 3 readings

1 hour to complete

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 hour to complete

2 videos (Total 29 min), 2 readings, 1 quiz

2 hours to complete

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 hours to complete

2 videos (Total 27 min), 2 readings, 4 quizzes

Week

2

Week 2

2 hours to complete

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 hours to complete

4 videos (Total 25 min), 3 readings, 2 quizzes

2 hours to complete

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 hours to complete

3 videos (Total 42 min), 2 readings, 1 quiz

Week

3

Week 3

1 hour to complete

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 hour to complete

2 videos (Total 40 min), 2 readings, 1 quiz

1 hour to complete

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 hour to complete

3 videos (Total 36 min), 1 reading, 2 quizzes

Week

4

Week 4

1 hour to complete

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 hour to complete

3 videos (Total 38 min), 1 reading, 2 quizzes

2 hours to complete

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 hours to complete

2 videos (Total 36 min), 1 reading, 2 quizzes

26 minutes to complete

Conclusion

26 minutes to complete

1 video (Total 6 min), 3 readings

Reviews

4.8

284 reviews

5 stars
82.24%
4 stars
15.71%
3 stars
1.71%
2 stars
0.08%
1 star
0.24%

TOP REVIEWS FROM MINDWARE: CRITICAL THINKING FOR THE INFORMATION AGE

by HASep 10, 2020

Awesome course! Definitely teaches about critical thinking. Uses case studies and examples which are fun :) Some maths too so good for math lovers :D

by SAMay 13, 2018

The activities and lectures were really interesting. This is the first course that i started and completed on Coursera. So I'm super excited.

by MKApr 7, 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.

by TAOct 9, 2021

I benefited a lot from this course because it is easy to convey the information, really an achievement that deserves thanks to the organizers of this training course

View all reviews

Frequently Asked Questions

When will I have access to the lectures and assignments?
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What will I get if I purchase the Certificate?
When you purchase a Certificate you get access to all course materials, including graded assignments. Upon completing the course, your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile. If you only want to read and view the course content, you can audit the course for free.
Is financial aid available?
Yes. In select learning programs, you can apply for financial aid or a scholarship if you can’t afford the enrollment fee. If fin aid or scholarship is available for your learning program selection, you’ll find a link to apply on the description page.

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Mindware: Critical Thinking for the Information Age