| Instructor: | Brian Habing, Assistant Professor Office: 203 LeConte e-mail: habing@stat.sc.edu Office Phone: 777-3578 Home Phone: 739-2686 (9am to 10pm only) Office Hours: whenever the door is open, by appointment, and Website: http://www.stat.sc.edu/~habing/courses/515S01.html | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bulletin Description: | STAT 515 —Statistical Methods I. (3) (Prereq: a grade of C or higher in MATH 111 or equivalent; or a grade of C or higher in STAT 201 or equivalent) Descriptive statistics, elementary probability, the normal and binomial distributions, sampling distribution of estimators, tests of hypothesis, categorical data analysis, correlation, simple and multiple linear regression. Statistical packages such as SAS. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Notes: |
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| Purpose of Course: | To familiarize students in a variety of fields with modern statistical methods, including the general areas of data description, elementary probability, and statistical inference. To prepare the students to further their study in statistical topics such as quality control, design of experiments, nonparametrics, time series, and sampling. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Expectations: |
All students are expected to:
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| Required Text: |
A First Course in Statistics (7th Edition), by J.T.McClave and
T. Sincich, Prentice Hall, 2000.
Additional materials are available on the course website. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Computers and Calculators: |
This course will use the software package SAS.
You will have an account on the CSM Windows-NT domain. Currently the
computers in LC 303A and PSC 102 have SAS. Student copies of SAS for
home use
are also available for purchase from the university's computer services
division. NO PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE OF SAS 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 experience with it. A basic calculator may be required on the exams. If your calculator is programable you will be required to clear its memory before the exam starts. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exams and Topics Covered: |
There will be three exams and the final.
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. A definitive list
of topics covered will be distributed one week before each exam, and
a representative past exam will be distributed in the class period before
the exam.
The first exam will be held in class on Friday, February 16th. It will focus on the subjects related to chapters 1 through section 4.7 of the text, including: graphical methods, measures of center and variability, basic rules of probability, probability distributions, the binomial random variable and counting rules, the normal distribution, and the normal approximation of the binomial distribution. The second exam will be held in class on Wednesday, March 28th. It will focus on the material related to section 4.8 and 4.9, chapters 5 and 6, and sections 7.1 to 7.3 and 8.1 to 8.2, including estimation and inference for one and two populations for means, variances, and proportions. The third exam will be held in class on Monday, April 23rd. It will focus on the material related to section 7.6 and chapter 9 of the text, including one-way analysis of variance and linear regression. The final exam will be held at 2:00pm on Saturday, May 5th. It It will be cumulative, covering both the material from the previous three exams, as well as the material on contingency tables in sections 8.3-8.4. 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 received on an exam must be raised by the next class period after it was returned.
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| Homework: |
Homework is due at the beginning of the class period it was
assigned for. Late homework is not accepted. There will be at least 17 homework assignments. Only the top 15 scores will be counted towards the final grade in the class. Each homework assignment will be worth three points. Homework will be assigned at least one week in advance in class, and will also be posted on the class website. If the homework is on a handout, that handout will be available in class and during office hours. The writing on the homework must be legible, the work used to obtain the answers must be shown, the final answers must be clearly indicated, and all expository answers should be grammatically correct in order to receive full credit. Extra points may be deducted for violating any of the following:
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. There will also be a project involving collecting and analyzing a data set using the techniques learned in the course. It will be worth 25 points, and the details will be given out on Monday, February 19th. The project will be due on Monday, April 30th. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 370.
If the score on the final exam is higher than the lowest exam score, it will be counted in the place of that exam score for the determination of that grade. There is no "extra credit". Any deviations from the above grading scheme will be to the benefit of the students. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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. |