Statistics 140(01):    Introduction to the
Ideas & Applications of Statistics

 

 

     

     

     

      

     

     

 

 

 

   Instructor:    Janice Gifford      415 Clapp      x2236
                           email: jgifford@mtholyoke.edu
    Office Hours: Posted outside 415 Clapp                                          

   Meeting Times: Section 01:  Tues. & Thurs. 8:35 – 9:50
                                           and Fri. 1:15 – 2:05 in Clapp 407

    Evening Help:  Available in 416 Clapp, Sun, Tues, Wed, & Thurs 7-9pm

Textbook:  Statistics, 3rd. ed., 1998, by David Freedman, Robert Pisani, and Roger Purves,

published by WW Norton & Co.  For what it covers, this is clearly the best book out there. 

 

Homework from the book:  No introductory math or stat book we know of has better

exercises than this textbook.  They are simply outstanding.  There are two kinds of

exercises, those at the ends of sections, and Review Exercises at the ends of the chapters.
Section exercises, which have answers at the back of the book, are designed to help

you with the harder parts of the concepts, help you build intuition about what the

computations tell you, and make sure that you are ready to move on to the next topic. 

Part of what makes these exercises so good is that they are extremely efficient: you’ll have

to think about the important, ideas, but the exercises rarely require you to do much number

crunching or writing, and the answer will usually be quite short. You should do all of these,
but it is not necessary for you to write them up to hand in.  (Some may appear on exams.)

Review Exercises are designed to show that you have understood the material of the

chapter.  Like the section exercises, they are designed to minimize busy-work.  

These you should write up to hand in.  See the daily schedule for due dates for chapters. 

By the day a chapter is due, you should have finished (a) reading the chapter, (b) working

all the exercises at the ends of the sections in the chapter, and (c) making a first try at the

Review Exercises.  Due dates for submitting the Review Exercises are also on the daily schedule.

Homeworks are due at 5:00 pm.

 

Homework Grading: To earn full credit, hand your homework in on time.  Each set of review

exercises will be graded with a check, check-plus or check-minus.  A paper which is mostly correct will

earn a check, which will carry full credit (if the paper is on time.)  An unusually good paper will earn

check-plus.  A substantially incomplete paper or one showing some serious misunderstanding will earn

check-minus, which means you should get extra help.  Late papers will be recorded, but marked late. 

They will be corrected provided the reader has time.  Your total HW grade will be based on the

best 18 out of 20 sets. 

 

Class:  Attendance is expected at every class meeting (Tues, Thurs & Fri.).  Class

participation is an important aid to learning, and we hope everyone will choose to participate. 

 

Exams.  There will be three exams given during the semester.  See schedule.

 

Project.  Instead of a final exam, there will be a final data-gathering-and-analysis project, with a brief

preliminary oral presentation during the last week of classes and a paper due at the end of the exam

period.  We will explain more about this as the semester progresses. 

 

Grades: Based on weekly HW (20%), three exams (20% each), & the final project (20%).

 

The schedule given below is subject to change – updated 8/24/07

 Schedule
 Top

Date

Class

 Day

Topic

Chapter

9/6

 

 1

Thurs

Introduction

 

9/11

 2

Tues

Controlled Experiments & Observational Studies

Chap 1, 2 (due Thurs 9/13)

9/13

 3

Thurs

Histograms

 

Chap 3  (due Mon 9/17)

9/14

 4

Fri

(Continue)

 

9/18

 5

Tues

Mean and Standard Deviation

Chap 4  (due Thurs 9/20)

9/20

 6

Thurs

Normal approximation for data

Chap 5 (due Mon  9/24)

9/21

 7

Fri

Review for Exam 1: Chap 1-5

 

9/25

 

 8

Tues

Correlation and review lines

Chap 8  (due Tues 10/2)

9/27

 9

Thurs

EXAM 1 (Ch 1-5)

 

9/28

10

Fri

Correlation (Continued)

 

10/2

11

Tues

Correlation (Continued)

 Chap 9  (due Thurs 10/4)

10/4

12

Thurs

Regression

Chap 10 (due Thurs10/11)

10/5

13

Fri

(Continue)

 

10/9

 

Tues
BREAK

 

10/11

14

Thurs

RMS Error for Regression

Chap 11 (due Mon 10/15)

10/12

15

Fri

 (Continue)

 

10/16

16

Tues

Regression line (omit sec. 2)

Chap 12  (due Th 10/18)

10/18

17

Thurs

Law of Averages

Chap 16 (due Th 10/25)

10/19

18

Fri

Review for Exam 2: Chap 8-12

 

10/23

19

Tues

EXAM 2 (Ch8-12)

 

10/25

20

Thurs

Expected values, standard error

Chap 17 (due Mon 10/29)

10/26

 21

Fri

Draft Items for Project Survey

 

10/30

22

Tues

 Normal approximation

Chap 18 (due Th 11/1)

11/1

23

Thurs

Surveys

Chap 19 (due Mon 11/5)

11/2

24

Fri

 (continue)

 

11/6

25

Tues

Chance Errors in Sampling

Chap 20 (due Th 11/8)

11/8

26

Thurs

Standard Error for Percentage

Chap 21 (due Mon 11/12)

11/9

27

Fri

(continue)
Workshop on project questions

 

11/13

28

Tues

Standard Error for Average

Chap 23 (due Th 11/15)

11/15

29

Thurs

Hypothesis Testing

Chap 26 (due Tu 11/27)

11/16

30

Fri

Review for Exam 3: Ch 16-21,23
Project info. Handed out.

 

11/20

31

Tues

EXAM 3 Ch 16-21,23

 

 

 

 

BREAK

 

11/27

32

Tues

Differences of Averages

 Chap 27 (due Th 11/29)
project plans due

11/29

33

Thurs

Two-way tables and Chi-Square Test

 Chap 28 (due Mon 12/3)

11/30

34

Fri

(Continue) Project plans

 

12/4

35

Tues

Significance, course evaluations

Chap 29 due Thu 12/6

12/6

36

Thurs
Project presentations

 

12/7

37

Fri

Project presentations

 

12/11

38

Tues

Project presentations

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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