| The Basics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Instructor: | Brian Habing, Assistant Professor office: 420G LeConte e-mail: habing@stat.sc.edu office phone: 777-3578 home phone: 739-2686 (9am to 10pm only) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Course Website: | http://www.stat.sc.edu/~habing/courses/515F98.html | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Office Hours: |
Monday/Wednesday 4:00 - 5:00 Wednesday/Friday 10:30 - 12:00 and BY APPOINTMENT | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prerequisite: | A grade of C or higher in MATH 111 (Basic College Mathematics - College Algebra) or STAT 201 (Elementary Statistics) or a course equivalent to either | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Credit: | 3 hours (undergraduate or graduate). Should NOT be taken if STAT 509 has or will be taken. Note that the deadline for dropping the course without failing is Thursday, October 1st. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Topics Covered: | Descriptive statistics, elementary probability, the normal and binomial distributions, sampling distribution of estimators, tests of hypotheses, categorical data analysis, correlation, simple and multiple linear regression. The statistical package SAS. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Purpose of Course: | The purpose of this course is to become familiar with the use modern statistical methods, including the general areas of: data description, elementary proability, and inference from data, in a variety of fields, such as: health, social and physical sciences, education and business. Successfull completion of the course should be preparation for continued study in: analysis of variance and covariance (STAT 516), statistical computing (STAT 517), nonparametric methods (STAT 518), statistical sampling (STAT 519), or quality control (STAT 525). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Text: | Statistical Methods (Revised Edition), by R.J. Freund and W.J. Wilson, Academic Press, 1997. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Computers: | This course will use the software package SAS,
as well as the spreadsheet Excel. You will have an account on the
workstations in 303A LeConte which have these programs. NO PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE
OF SAS OR Excel IS ASSUMED. SAS is the de facto standard statistical package in a number of industries, and experience with SAS is a prerequisite for many jobs in statistics and in fields which use statistics. While we will only scratch the surface of SAS's capabilities, it should provide a useful introduction into the more standard routines, and a jumping off point for future expericence with it. Spreadsheets such as Excel are efficient for data manipulation, commonly available on most computers, and easily used for many basic statistical calculations. A general knowledge of spreadsheets such as Excel is also useful in a large number of situations in statistical consulting, business, and personal activities. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Homework: |
Homework is due at the beginning of the class period it was
assigned for. Late homework is not accepted. Homework will be assigned at least one week in advance in class, and will also be posted on the class website later in the day on which it was assigned. If the homework is on a handout, that handout will be available in class and during office hours. In general, a fairly short set of problems will be assigned each class period. The frequency is designed to keep the subject in mind. There will be at least 16 homework assignments. Out of these 16 or more assignments, only the 15 highest scores will count towards the final grade in the class. Each homework assignment will be graded from 0 to 5 points. One point will be deducted for each violation of the following:
You MAY work on the homework assignments with other students, but each student must write it up individually. (i.e., No photocopies of other students work.) Any questions about the grading of a problem on the homework must be made by the class period following the one in which it was returned. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Book Examples: | You are responsible for reading the examples in the book. Those particular examples will generally NOT be worked out in class. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exams and Topics Covered: | There are two "hour" exams and a final exam. The topics covered in the exams will generally follow the chapters
of the text listed below. However,
the exams may also cover material which was solely
presented in class, and that is not contained in the text. The first exam is in class on Tuesday, September 22nd. It will focus on the subjects related to chapters 1 and 2 of the text, including: data description, basic probability, binomial and normal distributions, and the sampling distribution of the sample mean. The second exam is in class on Thursday, November 5th. It will focus on the material related to chapters 3, 4, and 5 of the text, including: confidence intervals, hypothesis tests for a population mean and a population variance, estimation and testing of the difference in two population means and for the ratio of two population variances. The final exam will be held at 2:00pm on Tuesday, December 8th. It will focus primarily on the material related to chapters 12, 7, and 8 in the text, including: categorical data analysis, linear regression, correlation, and multiple linear regression. The final exam will also have questions relating to the major concepts of chapters 1-5 of the text. Make up exams will be given only in extreme circumstances, and only when accompanied by appropriate documentation. Incidence of cheating and academic dishonesty will be punished to the full extent allowed by university regulations. Any questions concerning a grade recieved on an exam must be raised by the next class period after it was returned.
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| Grades: | The grade is determined by the scores on the
homework and the three examinations as follows:
with the letter grade determined by the percentage of points obtained out of the maximum possible 400.
While it will generally not be necessary to "curve" or rescale the grades on the hour exams or the final, this may be done at the instructors discretion by setting 100% to be 100%, the lowest A to be 90.0%, the lowest D to be 60.0%, and 0% to be 0%, and then linearly interpolating to calculate the scores and rounding up to the next half point. In all cases, the rescaled scores shall not be lower than the original scores, and the scaling shall be announced when the graded exams are returned. There is no "extra credit". | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Complaints and Comments: | While there are end of semester evaluation forms, they come far too late to resolve any difficulties experienced in the class. All complaints should be raised by either speaking with me directly, or by anonymously leaving a message in my mailbox in 216 LeConte. |