This book develops foundational concepts in probability and statistics with primary applications in mechanical and aerospace engineering. It develops the mindset a data analyst must have to interpret an ill-defined problem, operationalize it, collect or interpret data, and use this evidence to make decisions that can improve the quality of engineered products and systems. It was designed utilizing the latest research in statistics learning and in engagement teaching practices The author's focus is on developing students' conceptual understanding of statistical theory with the goal of effective design and conduct of experiments. Engineering statistics is primarily a form of data modeling. Emphasis is placed on modelling variation in observations, characterizing its distribution, and making inferences with regards to quality assurance and control. Fitting multivariate models, experimental design and hypothesis testing are all critical skills developed. All topics are developed utilizing real data from engineering projects, simulations, and laboratory experiences. In other words, we begin with data, we end with models. The key features are: Realistic contexts situating the learning of the statistics in actual engineering practice. A balance of rigorous mathematics, conceptual scaffolding, and real, messy data, to ensure that students learn the important concepts and can apply them in practice. The consistency of text, lecture notes, data sets, and simulations yield a coherent set of instructional resources for the instructor and a coherent set of learning experiences for the students. MatLab is used as a computational tool. Other tools are easily substituted. Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Dealing with Variation 3. Types of Data 4. Introduction to Probability 5. Sampling Distribution of the Mean 6. The Ten Building Blocks of Experimental Design 7. Sampling Distribution of the Proportion 8. Hypothesis Testing Using the 1-sample Statistics 9. 2-sample Statistics 10. Simple Linear Regression 11. The General Linear Model: Regression with Multiple Predictors 12. The GLM with Categorical Independent Variables: The Analysis of Variance 13. The General Linear Model: Randomized Block Factorial ANOVA 14. Factorial Analysis of Variance 15. The Bootstrap 16. Data Reduction: Principal Components Analysis Index Author Biography James A. Middleton is Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and former Director of the Center for Research on Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology at Arizona State University. Previously, he held the Elmhurst Energy Chair in STEM education at the University of Birmingham in the UK. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has been Senior co-Chair of the Special Interest Group for Mathematics Education in the American Educational Research Association, and as Chair of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' Research Committee. He has been a consultant for the College Board, the Rand Corporation, the National Academies, the American Statistical Association, the IEEE, and numerous school systems around the United States, the UK, and Australia. He has garnered over $30 million in grants to study and improve mathematics education in urban schools.

In recent years, funding agencies like the Institute of Educational Sciences and the National Science Foundation have increasingly emphasized large-scale studies with experimental and quasi-experimental designs looking for 'objective truths'. Educational researchers have recently begun to use large-scale studies to understand what really works, from developing interventions, to validation studies of the intervention, and then to efficacy studies and the final "scale-up" for large implementation of an intervention. Moreover, modeling student learning developmentally, taking into account cohort factors, issues of socioeconomics, local political context and the presence or absence of interventions requires the use of large data sets, wherein these variables can be sampled adequately and inferences made. Inroads in quantitative methods have been made in the psychometric and sociometric literatures, but these methods are not yet common knowledge in the mathematics education community. In fact, currently there is no volume devoted to discussion of issues related to large-scale studies and to report findings from them. This volume is unique as it directly discusses methodological issue in large-scale studies and reports empirical data from large-scale studies.

This book records the state of the art in research on mathematics-related affect. It discusses the concepts and theories of mathematics-related affect along the lines of three dimensions. The first dimension identifies three broad categories of affect: motivation, emotions, and beliefs. The book contains one chapter on motivation, including discussions on how emotions and beliefs relate to motivation. There are two chapters that focus on beliefs and a chapter on attitude which cross-cuts through all these categories. The second dimension covers a rapidly fluctuating state to a more stable trait. All chapters in the book focus on trait-type affect and the chapter on motivation discusses both these dimensions. The third dimension regards the three main levels of theorizing: physiological (embodied), psychological (individual) and social. All chapters reflect that mathematics-related affect has mainly been studied using psychological theories.