1 STAT 217 Introduction to Statistical Concepts and Methods Winter 2011 Instructor: Allan Rossman Classes: MW 8:10-10:00 in room 02-206 (Statistics Studio Classroom) Office: Faculty Office Building East 25-102, 805-756-2861 Email: [email protected] Office Hours: M 1-2, Tu 2-4, W 1-2, and by appointment and by chance Course Webpage: http://statweb.calpoly.edu/arossman/stat217/ Overview: Statistics concerns drawing conclusions and making decisions based on data. The practice of statistics involves collecting data, analyzing data, and making inferences from data. This course introduces you to fundamental concepts and methods of statistics. I believe and will try to convince you that statistics is an extremely important discipline in today’s world. Goals: By the conclusion of the course, I hope that you have improved your ability to: • apply and interpret the results of a variety of statistical techniques, including both descriptive and inferential methods; • understand many of the fundamental ideas of statistics, such as variability, distribution, association, causation, sampling, experimentation, confidence, and significance; • analyze and assess statistical arguments, such as those found in the popular press as well as in scholarly publications; • use statistical software to analyze data; • communicate your knowledge of statistical ideas effectively. You can see the expanded course outline (available from our course webpage) for more specific learning objectives and a more detailed outline of topics. Course Principles: The following principles guide my development and teaching of this course: 1. Statistics is not number-crunching. Contrary to its popular perception as a black box collection of arcane magic tricks, statistics involves much more than numerical computations. The emphasis of the course will be on understanding statistical concepts and on interpreting and communicating the results of statistical analyses. In other words, you will be expected to learn to construct and analyze numerical arguments. In contrast to most mathematics courses, we will be using phrases such as “there is strong evidence that ...” and “the data suggest that ...” rather than “the exact answer is ...” and “it is therefore proven that ...” To alleviate the computational burden, we will often use the computer program Minitab to perform calculations and produce graphical displays. You will find that interpreting and explaining are at least as important, possibly more important, than calculating in this course. 2. Statistics involves the analysis of genuine data. Supporting my contention that statistics is applicable in everyday life and in most fields of academic endeavor, you will analyze real data from genuine studies covering a wide variety of applications throughout the course. Some of these data sets involve information that you will collect about yourselves and your peers; others will come from sources such as published scientific studies, official statistics from government agencies, and various web resources. The contexts for these data will span a wide variety of subject matter, from medicine to law, from2 psychology to politics, from education to sports. My intention and hope is that most should be of interest to a general audience. 3. Understanding results from investigation and discovery. Class meetings will be designed for you to actively engage with the material, rather than passively taking notes while I lecture. We will work through activities carefully designed to lead you to discover statistical concepts, explore statistical properties, and apply statistical methods. Please come to class expecting to participate, think, and learn. Course Materials: There is no textbook for this course. I will provide many handouts that we will work through in class, and I may provide some handouts for you to read on your own. These handouts will be available under “Course Materials” in Blackboard; I will try to post them by 4pm on the previous day if not sooner. I strongly encourage you to print out these handouts in advance and bring them to class. I also suggest that you obtain a three-ring binder for organizing your notes. Please bring these handouts and binder to every class meeting. You must also have a scientific calculator and access to the internet and to the statistical software package Minitab outside of class. You will also find it helpful to bring a USB drive to every class session so you can save your computer work. Class Policies: I strongly encourage you to prepare for and participate in every class session. Not only will this help you to learn the material and perform well in the course, but it will also produce a much more enjoyable learning environment for all of us. Participating in class will typically entail contributing to discussions and working on hands-on activities that I prepare to help you investigate and learn the material. Please be aware that because our class meets for two hours at a time, we will have to cover a lot of ground in every class session, and I will also expect you to do a good bit of work between class meetings. Use of Computers: We will use computers fairly extensively in this course. One use is for communication: I will post much information on the course website, and I will occasionally send course announcements via email. I also invite you to ask questions via e-mail. Computers will also prove useful for learning statistics and for conducting statistical analyses. Many of the activities that we work through in class will entail use of computers. For these statistical uses, we use the statistical analysis package Minitab and also Java applets. No prior knowledge of these software tools is assumed; you will receive detailed instructions regarding their use when the need arises. Minitab is freely available in the Studio classroom and in the computer lab in the Library and in other PC labs on campus. You can download a free copy of Minitab from my.calpoly.edu (see instructions on our course webpage), but Minitab is not available for Macintosh computers. The Java applets can be accessed and run through any web browser. Grading Policies: Your course grade will be determined by the following components, with relative weights as indicated: • quizzes, in-class and take-home (15%) • investigation assignments (15%) • two midterm exams (40%, 20% each) • cumulative