Stat 217      Introduction to Statistical Concepts and Methods      Winter 2008

Instructor: Allan Rossman
Class Times: TuTh 4:10-6:00pm, room 02-206 (Statistics Studio Classroom)
Office: Faculty Office Building East 25-102
Phone: 756-2861 (6-2861 on campus)
Email: arossman@calpoly.edu
Office Hours: MWF 10:10-11:00am in 25-102, TuTh 3:10-4:00pm in 02-206, and by appointment and by chance
Text: Workshop Statistics: Discovery with Data (3rd edition), by Rossman and Chance

Course Webpage: http://statweb.calpoly.edu/arossman/stat217/

Overview: Statistics might be defined as the science of numerical reasoning from data. Its purpose is to aid people in making decisions based on the analysis of numerical information. Data and numerical arguments abound not only in science and social science disciplines but in almost every field of academic inquiry. Moreover, most people encounter statistical reasoning in everyday life. It is therefore exceedingly appropriate and important for all liberally educated citizens to undertake study of fundamental principles and methods of statistics.

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, from 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. You will be encouraged to work collaboratively with a partner on some of these activities, while we will work through others as a class.  Please come to class expecting to participate, think, and learn.

 

Goals: By the conclusion of the course, I hope that you have improved your ability to:

Course Materials: You should obtain the textbook and a three-ring binder for organizing your notes.  The textbook consists primarily of activities; its pages are perforated and three-hole-punched so you can insert them into a binder.  Please bring your book (at least the relevant pages for a given class) 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 might 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.  Check the course webpage often to see what is expected for class preparation each day.  This will typically involve reading the section(s) of the book and perhaps answering a few preliminary questions.  Participating in class will typically entail contributing to discussions and working on hands-on activities that I have designed to help you investigate and learn the material. 

 

I also expect you to devote substantial outside-of-class time to your work for this course.  I anticipate that this work will be divided among:

 

I will post daily notes here to keep you apprised of what we have done in class and what you should do to prepare for the next class.  Please check this page often, because it will contain many useful resources and help you to keep track of what is expected of you.

 

Use of Computers: We will use computers fairly extensively in this course.  One use is for communication: I will post lots of information on the course website, and I 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.

 

We will 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 all ITS-run computer labs.  You can download a free copy of Minitab from my.calpoly.edu (see instructions here), 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: I will encourage and reward your class preparation and participation by collecting and grading some aspect of your work in most class sessions.  Because we have two-hour meeting times, we may even have two quizzes in some class sessions.  In some cases this will be a quiz based on what I present or you investigate during the class or a previous class, in others it will be a sample of your work from an in-class activity, in still others it will be a homework problem.  Specific rules for each quiz (individual or partner, open- or closed-book, beginning or end of class, in-class or take-home) will be announced as we go.  Missed quizzes can not be made up or excused, but you may drop your lowest four quiz scores before calculating your overall score.  These quizzes, and their solutions, will be posted here so that you can check your work afterward.

Optional Assignments: For each topic that we study, I will assign optional homework problems from the text, for which solutions will be posted in Blackboard.  I strongly encourage you to work on these problems in order to help you learn the material and prepare for the exams. A listing of these optional homework assignments will be maintained here.

The purposes of these quizzes and assignments are:

 

Mini-projects: Toward the end of the course, I will ask you to work on two mini-projects.  Some will involve using software to analyze data and then writing a report of your analysis and conclusions, while others will entail finding and critiquing a news article that describes a study involving statistics in some capacity.  Detailed expectations will be provided here.

 

Exams: There will be two midterm exams and a final exam.  Dates for the midterms are January 31 and February 28.  The final exam is scheduled for Thursday, March 20 from 7:10-10:00pm.  You may make up a missed exam only with a written medical excuse.  The final exam will focus on more recent material but will also have a cumulative component.  These exams will be open-book and open-notes.  You will be provided with preparation advice before each exam.  One thing to keep in mind is that interpretations and explanations will be as important as calculations.

 

Courtesy: I ask you to please observe some common courtesies, specifically to:

 

Advice: With apologies to David Letterman, I offer the following “Top Ten” suggestions to improve your learning in this course:

 

A common theme emerges from this list: You are responsible for your own learning. As your instructor, I view my role as providing you with contexts, opportunities, and feedback that facilitates the learning process. Please call on me to help with your learning in whatever ways I can. 

 

Here’s a bonus eleventh suggestion:

 

You will be expected to think in this course.  Please be prepared for me to ask you to reason and explain as much as I expect you to do calculations.

 

Tentative Schedule: The following is always subject to change but should give you a sense for what topics we will cover and when:

 

Week

Dates

Topics

Chapters

1

Jan 8, 10

Data, Variables, Distributions, Conclusions

1-3

2

Jan 15, 17

Collecting Data, Two-Way Tables

4-6

3

Jan 22, 24

Graphs, Measures of Center and Spread

7-9

4

Jan 29, 31

Summarizing Data, Exam

10

5

Feb 5, 7

Randomness, Sampling Distributions

11-13

6

Feb 12, 14

Central Limit Theorem, Confidence Intervals

14-16

7

Feb 19, 21

Confidence Intervals (cont.), Tests of Significance

17-19

8

Feb 26, 28

Tests of Significance (cont.), Exam

20

9

Mar 4, 6

Inference for Comparisons, Chi-Square Tests

21-23, 25

10

Mar 11, 13

Bivariate Data, Least Squares Regression

26-29

 

Mar 20

Final Exam  (7:10-10pm)