Introduction to statistics

Course: Mathematics 203 B, Introduction to Statistics, Spring 2001, Central College.
Professor: Tom Linton, 312 B Central Hall, (641) 628-5264, email: lintont@central.edu.
Class Meets: MWRF 1:00 to 1:50 PM in Central Hall 317.
Office Hours: 10 AM Mon, Tues, 11 AM Fri, 2 PM Thurs, or by appointment.
Text: The Basic Practice of Statistics 2nd Edition, by Moore.
Technology: A TI-83 calculator is required for this course. Students with similar calculators will have a significant disadvantage to overcome. No prior knowledge of the TI-83 is assumed. Calculators are allowed on exams. The class web page is located at the URL http://www.central.edu/homepages/lintont/classes/spring01/introstatframeset.htm and information relevant to this course may come via email. You should check your email and the class web page on occasion.
Final Exam: Tuesday May 15, 1 PM, 317 Central Hall.

Old significance tests on TI-83 sheet.

Goals:
Upon completing this class a student will:

Have an understanding of the main ideas of statistics and useful skills for working with data.
Know a variety of methods for analyzing, describing, and displaying data.
Understand concepts related to the proper production of data and experimental design, such as randomization and comparative analysis.
Master the language, meaning and calculations of statistical inference.
Be able to meaningfully respond to and interpret the ever increasing statistical results appearing in our modern media.

Class Overview

Statistics is the science of interpreting, understanding and deducing information from data collections. We will emphasize the meaning of statistical results, rather than the formulas used to calculate them. Our goal will be to cover most of the first 8 chapters of the text, in the order they appear in the book. We will spend roughly two days on each section of the text, leaving some time at the beginning of the second day to discuss questions on the homework assignments. Most students find the first three chapters of the text much easier than the remaining chapters.Our text is exceptionally well written. You should strive to read the text, it is written with you in mind. Reading mathematics is a skill we will focus on in this course. It is an active process, unlike reading most novels or poems. You should read each section of the text before coming to the class meetings on that material. The homework problems which appear in the middle of the sections (for example, problems 1.1 to 1.10 in section 1.1) should be attempted as you read. These questions will likely show up on quizzes and activities.

Most students that struggle with statistics fall behind at some point, avoid this like the plague. One day at a time, statistics is easy! If you blow off a few days, it can become much more challenging.

If any student has a physical, learning or psychiatric disability that restricts the development or expression of your gifts, please feel free to let me know so that we can, when possible, make accommodations that will enhance your classroom experience.

Grades

Grades, based on the letter, or A, A-, B+, B, B-, . . . system, will be based on a curve (no stricter than the traditional 90, 80, 70, 60 percent scheme) of the total points in the class. The breakdown of the points in the class is given below. There is no extra credit for this class. You are encouraged to work together on group assignments (including homework), but copying answers of others (including those in the back of the text) will result in no credit.If any student has a physical, learning or psychiatric disability that restricts the development or expression of your gifts, please feel free to let me know so that we can, when possible, make accommodations that will enhance your classroom experience.

Exams

There will be three midterm exams worth 100 points each. Tentatively, these exams will occur when we complete two chapters of the text (after chapters 2, 4 and 6), or approximately on the dates February 15 (exam 1), March 7 (exam 2) and April 13 (exam 3). We will also have a 150 point cumulative final exam on Tuesday May 15 at 1 PM.

Quizzes and Homework

I will collect homework assignments regularly and there will be regular (every week or two) quizzes as well. Normally, quizzes will be announced. There will be approximately 350 points total (200 on HW and 150 on quizzes) based on your homework and quiz grades. You should keep your homework in a separate notebook so that it can be collected at any time. Recording "just the answer" will receive little or no credit. You should show and/or explain your work on all assignments for this class. You are encouraged to work together on homework assignments, but this does NOT mean copying the work of others nor answers from a solution set.

Activities

We will complete several activities (mostly in groups), some in-class, others may be out of class. These activities will involve the current topics of the course and normally replace a lecture. We will have approximately 200 points (total) worth of activities.

Class Participation and Attendance

There will be 50 points based on your class participation (asking questions, taking part in discussions, contributing to your group in activities, etc.) and attendance. I will determine your score for these 50 points. You are responsible for all of the material covered in class each day, even if you are not present.

Late assignments and academic dishonesty

Late homework, activities, etc. will be penalized by 10% each lecture they are late. I am fairly flexible about giving exams at alternate times, BUT you should definitely warn me before the exam is missed, and plan on taking it early rather than late. Quizzes missed due to absences can NOT be made up.

Plagiarism, or copying answers from other people or books without citing the source is a serious offense and will result in no credit for the work. It is OK to discuss your answers with other groups on group assignments, but the work you turn in must be your own.

Class Materials

TI-83 Materials

The TI-83 calculator is required for this course. It performs many useful statistical calculations with the press of a button. No prior knowledge of the TI-83 is assumed but the TI-83 will be utilized extensively in this course. The links below point to files designed to help explain some features of this pocket computer. The first two links are introductory in nature and designed to help familiarize new users with some basic features of the TI-83. The remaining links will only make sense as we progress through the semester.
Introduction: A general introduction to the TI-83 calculator.
Graphing: Several basic operations related to graphing functions are covered in this document.
Normal Calculations: Probabilities associated with normal distributions are covered.
Linear Regression: Correlation, scatterplots and least squares linear regression are looked at briefly on the TI-83.
Confidence intervals and significance or hypothesis tests with the TI-83.

Activities

Day one information sheet.
Activity one, resistance of the mean and median.
Correlation activity, what is correlation and how we calculate it with the TI-83.
Causation versus association, TV's and life expectancy.
SRS activity, class data, using a TI-83 to select a simple random sample (SRS) and properties of SRSs.
Sampling M&M activity class data, a look at the distribution of sampling statistics (x-bar) using M&Ms.
binomial activity, class data, random variables that count successes.
Significance tests activity. An introduction to the reasoning behind significance tests.

Quizzes and exams

quiz 1, quiz 2, quiz 3, quiz 4, quiz 5, exam 1 practice, exam 2 practice.

Schedule:

Relevant information will be added to this schedule as we progress through the semester. An up to date version is available on line at http://www.central.edu/homepages/lintont/classes/spring01/introstat/introstat.htm#schedule.

Week	Dates	Sections	Assignment
1	1-22 to 26	1.1 and 1.2	Class data sheet 1.1 #1,4,5,6,8,9,13,15,18,21 1.2 #27,28,30,31,32,34,35,37,42,45,48 Mean-Median activity.
2	1-29 to 2-1	1.2, 1.3	1.3#51,52,53,54,56,57,58,60,62,63,66,68,69 quiz 1
3	2-5 to 9	2.1, 2.2	2.1#1, 3 TO 8,11,12 correlation activity 2.2#22,23,27,29
4	2-12 to 16	2.3, 2.4	2.3#30,32,33,35,37,38,39,42,44,46,48 Causation vs association activity, quiz 2 2.4#53,54,56,57,61
5	2-19 to 23	3.1	exam 1 practice, 3.1#2,5,6,8,10,13,19,20,23,24,29,30
6	2-26 to 3-2	3.2, 4.1	SRS activity, class data 3.2#33,34,36,37,39,40,42,45,47,53,58 quiz 3
7	3-5 to 9	4.2, 4.3	4.1#1,3,6,10,11,13 4.2#14,17,18,19,21,22,23,24,29,30,32,37 4.3#38,40,42,43,47,51,53,62,64 Sampling M&M activity class data
	Spring Break!
8	3-18 to 23	5.1	5.1#1,2,5,6,8,9,12,14
9	3-25 to 30	5.2	exam 2 practice binomial activity 5.2#18,19,20,21,24,26,28,31,33,34,36
10	4-2 to 6	6.1	6.1#1 to 8,12,14,17,18,19,21 quiz 4
11	4-8 to12	6.2	6.2#25,26,27,29,31,32,34 to 40,42,43 intro to significance tests activity old significance tests on TI-83 sheet
12	4-17 to 20	6.3 to 6.4	6.3#54,55,56,58,62 quiz 5
13	4-23 to 27	6.4, 7.1	6.4#63,65,67,68 quiz 6, exam 3 practice 7.1#2,3,4,7,8,9,12,12,14,16,19,21,24
14	4-30 to 5-4	7.2, 8.1	7.2#28,31,32,33,35,37,42,46,47 2 sample VS 1 sample activity 8.1#2,4,5,8,9,10,13,15,18,19,21
15	5-7 to 11	8.2	8.2#24,25,27,29,35,38
16	May 15	Tues 1 PM	Cumulative Final Exam