Video Lectures: The video series (26 - half hour tapes), Against All Odds, is available at the library reserve desk.

Grading Policy: Scores will be assigned to your solutions given on exams, homework, the quiz, and the project as described below. Semester letter grades will be determined by weighting those scores in the following manner:

Exams: Examination dates are given on the attached tentative schedule. Changes to this schedule will be announced in class. If you are sick or will be out of town at the time of a scheduled exam, contact me in advance of the midterm exam times. Departmental policy prohibits early finals. Always show all of your work for full credit. Many exam questions will require written discussion. The use of incorrect spelling (especially of statistical terms) or poor grammar will result in a reduced score. Example exams with and without answers are available on the class web site. Exams may include questions on reading material not discussed in lectures; Read your text. All exams are closed book; However, you are allowed to use one 8½ by 11 inch crib sheet (both sides) for each exam for equations, definitions, etc. Any tables you need for exams will be provided with the exam.

Homework: A list of homework exercises for the semester and their respective due date is given below.  Homework is an important part of how and what you will learn from this course. Therefore, students failing to turn in three or more homework assignments will be withdrawn from the course (up to the last day for instructor initiated withdrawl).   The due dates are tentative, there maybe adjustments of a day or two if necessary; Changes are announced in class. Homework must be given to me at class or in my box no later than  noon on the date due (rare exceptions strictly up to the instructor). Homework will be graded and returned.

Home work solutions should adhere to the following criteria:
   - they should answer all parts of each question assigned (unless noted otherwise) in the order assigned,
   - explain how and why you answered the way you did, e.g., a simple numerical solution or a yes or no without justification is unacceptable,
   - for calculations, you must show the formula you used,
   - narrative or descriptive solutions should be answered using complete sentences,
   - solutions should be neat (messy or difficult to read homework will not be accepted),
   - solutions should follow a logical order and use standard mathematical notation in an appropriate way,
   - use correct spelling (especially of statistical terms) and grammar, and
   - staple multiple page homework assignments together (I do not accept unstapled pages).

Homework sets giving correct solutions to all assigned exercises and meeting the above criteria will receive a score of 10.  A reduced score is determined for each incorrect solution and for assignments not following the criteria given above.

One exercise in each of the homework assignments (except the last two) is listed in bold large font. Theseare revision exercises intended to give you a chance to get feedback and redo your work.  Solutions to these exercises are recorded only as satisfactory or not according to the criteria above (no partial points are given).  Incorrect, incomplete, or otherwise poor solutions to these exercises must be revised, written on a new page and resubmitted within two class periods of their return for a revised score.

Some home work assignments are due just prior to exams, you should keep a copy of your solutions of these home work sets for use in studying for the exam.  Solutions to odd numbered exercises are given in the back of the text; please do not plagiarize these answers.   I encourage you to check your answers before submitting your homework.  Students are encouraged to form study groups to discuss and compare homework solutions. However, your home work should be your own, not copies of someone else's work.    Please note homework is 20% of the final grade.

Calculator: You will need a calculator for completing homework assignments and exam questions. A calculator with a summation key and the ability to do basic one- and two variable statistical computations is strongly recommended.  Use the manual that came with your calculator to learn how to  do statistical computations; it will make your life much easier in this course.

Project: Students will work in teams of 4 to 6 to complete the design, implementation, analysis, and interpretation of a statistical project. Projects will focus on a hypothesis test, estimation (a confidence interval), or a simulation; examples are given below or you may invent your own.   Check with the instructor before collecting any data and in determining the statistical analysis to use.  Simulation studies may be conducted manually, such as that described by exercises 3.59 and 3.60, or using a computer.   Individual students will write their own paper describing the project; the data, graphics, and calculations may be shared but individual reports should be unique.  If you do not understand what you may share, ask me, do not presume.   You must collect  your own data for the project (or produce in the case of simulation); You may not use existing data; e.g., you may not download data from the internet.  The paper must be typed, single spaced, have numbered pages and  font size no smaller than 10. The key to this project is to keep it simple.  Use the format below in preparing your individual paper; be careful to address each item listed.

The paper shall include the following sections:
1) Title page: Give a title to your work, your name followed by the list of students in your project team, the date, and identify this course.
2) Introduction: A description of  the purpose of the study and any necessary background information.  The introduction should plainly describe the variable(s) of interest and indicate whether your project concerns estimation or hypothesis testing.  If  estimation, your introduction should clearly state what is being estimated and why.  If hypothesis testing, your introduction should clearly state null and alternative hypotheses.  If a simulation is conducted, the purpose of the simulation should be given.
3) Methods and Materials: This sections must include a complete description of the population studied (be specific not vague here), how randomization was used to select the sample or assign treatments to units, a written description of what analyses were done (reference pages in the text), how any required assumptions were assessed (they must be), and how outliers were identified.  This section should clearly identify the type of sampling used and the frame (see exercise 3.45 page 265 of text) used for sampling.  Hypothesis testing projects should identify the test statistic used in this section. and the p-value of the test.
4) Results and Interpretation: Include graphics (required), summary tables, analyses, and a complete description of your conclusions and interpretations.  Hypothesis testing projects should give the numerical results of the test used and the p-value of the test.   Estimation projects should include the confidence interval determined.  Simulation studies should give simulation results and interpret their meaning.  A discussion of the validity of all assumptions made based on your assessment and the impact of any outliers identified is required.
5)  References:  Give complete bibliographic citations for our text with page numbers relating to specific methods used and for any other references you have used.
6) Addendum:  Include the following here:
    a) lessons learned and what you would do differently if you did the project again,
    b) what you contributed to the project, and
    c) one specific example of something you learned from the team project that you probably would not have learned otherwise.

Examples of possible projects:

1) L. M. Boyd (NewsMiner January 1999) stated that the average word in spoken English is 1.4 syllables. Design and conduct a study to test whether this is correct or not for some small local population.

2) Design and conduct a study to estimate the number of trees ( or birds or squirrels) in a well defined area; Give a confidence interval.

3) Estimate the average number of teeth or number of siblings that some small local population has; Give a confidence interval.

4) Design and conduct a study to compare the cost of the same collection of items at two stores.

5) Design and conduct a study to compare the average word length in two magazines, e.g., Scientific American and People.  One group of students in spring 99 used a paired t-test to compare word length from Cosmopolitan and Sports Illustrated based on a randomly selected word, on a randomly selected page, in a randomly selected issue (the same issue was used for each magazine, thus, paired samples resulted).

6) Design and conduct a study to determine if there is a linear relationship between ring size and height for some small local population. Construct a scatter plot, test the hypothesis, give a p-value, and assess assumptions.  One group of students in spring 99 studied the relationship between shoe size (European) and height in centimeters using a systematic sample of students from three UAF classes.  They tested for a significant linear relationship, checked the assumptions of normality and common variance, and used their equation to predict Shaq O'Neil's height from his shoe size.

7) Design and conduct a survey to determine if there is an association between gender and participation in intramural sports for some small local student population (a class or a floor of a residence hall).

8) One group of students in summer 99 designed and conducted a study to compare the proportion of green M & M's to the proportion of green M & M peanut candies.  Another group compared the average number of candies per small bag for these two types of candies.

9) One group of students in spring 99 systematically sampled students in three UAF classes to test whether a majority of off-campus students drove to UAF.
 

STAT 200 Tentative Schedule (revisions announced in class) Fall 1999

Day & Date	Text Chapter or Section to be discussed	Topics	Homework due this date
Friday,  September 3	Introduction & 1.1	Types of variables, stemplots, histograms, time plots, examining distributions
Monday, September 6	Labor Day		No Class
Wednesday,  September 8	1.1 & 1.2	Descriptive statistiscs, boxplots, outliers, linear transformations
Friday,  September 10	1.2 & 1.3		Send me an e-mail message indicating 1) you have reviewed the grading policy and schedule on the web and 2) list the names of your study group for this course
Monday,  September 13	1.3	Normal distribution calculations	Exercises: 1.2, 1.15, 1.21,1.23,1.25,1.34
Wednesday,  September 15	Catch up day chapter 1 and 2.1		Identify a study group for exam 1 and set a schedule.
Friday,  September 17	2.1 & 2.2	Scatterplots and correlation	Exercises: 1.43,1.44,1.53,1.67(not optional), 1.81,(verify your answer using the seeing statistics web site)  1.83,1.87, 1.91,1.97
Monday, September 20	2.2 & 2.3
Wednesday,  September 22	2.4	Simple linear regression	Exercises: 2.3,2.14,2.20,2.30,2.32,2.37,2.39,2.47a
Friday,  September 24	2.6 & 2.7  (skip  2.5)	Relations in categorical variables and causation
Monday,  September 27	3.1 & 3.2	Design of experiments	Exercises: 2.55,2.59,2.91,2.94,2.97,2.99,2.101 Identify a project team and begin planning a project.
Wednesday,  September 29	3.3 & 3.4	Sampling, sampling distributions, and inference
Friday,  October 1	Catchup day Chapter 3 and review		Exercises: 3.3,3.4,3.11 (see message above 3.9), 3.15 (number women 01 to 40 alphabetically, use two digit random numbers beginning on line 121 moving left to right, give names of women selected & random numbers), 3.33,3.47,3.50,3.53 (see note above 3.51),3.55,3.57,3.60 (you do not need to pool results)
Monday,  October 4	EXAM # 1 Chapters 1, 2, & 3
Wednesday, October 6	4.1, 4.2 & 4.5	Randomness, probability, equally likely outcomes
Friday,  October 8	4.2 & 4.5	Venn diagrams, intersections, unions, conditional probability, independence, disjoint events
Monday,  October 11	4.3	Random variables and probability distributions
Wednesday,  October 13	4.4	Means and variances of random variables	Exercises: 4.11,4.12,4.16,4.27,4.31,4.36,4.76,4.78,4.82, 4.87,4.89
Friday,  October 15	Catch up day
Monday,  October 18	5.1	Binomial distributions and the normal approximation for counts and proportions	Exercises: 4.38,4.41,4.49,4.59,4.65,4.69,4.70 4.91,4.93
Wednesday,  October 20	5.1 & 5.2
Friday,  October 22	5.2 (skip 5.3)	Sampling distribution of the sample mean, the central limit theorem	Turn in a typed team project proposal (one per team).  The proposal should identify the project as addressing estimation, hypothesis testing, or simulation.  For the former two, the proposal shall completely identify the population and how randomization will be used to select the sample or assign treatments to experimental units.  Identify team members in your proposal.  I will read the proposals and make suggestions for revisions.  Please do not collect data without my review of your proposal. Identify a study group for exam 2 and set a schedule.
Monday,  October 25	Catchup day Chapter 5
Wednesday,  October 27	6.1 & 6.2	Confidence intervals and margin of error
Friday, October 29	6.2 & 6.3	Hypothesis tests, p-values, significance levels	Exercises: 5.3,5.5 (use the normal approximation),5.9,5.11 (use table C),5.21,5.25,5.26,5.27, 5.39
Monday,  November 1	6.3 + definitions in  6.4	Type I and II errors and power
Wednesday,  November 3	Catch up day chapter 6 and review		Exercises: 6.2,6.5,6.13,6.22,6.27,6.33,6.36,6.39,6.40,6.50
Friday,  November 5	EXAM 2 Chapters 4, 5, & 6
Monday,  November 8	7.1	One sample and matched pairs t tests
Wednesday,  November 10	7.2	Two sample t tests
Friday, November 12	7.2 (skip 7.3)
Monday, November 15	Catchup day Chapter 7
Wednesday, November 17	8.1 &  8.2	Inference for a single proportion	Exercises: 7.1,7.4abcd,7.5ab,7.32,7.37,7.38,7.62,7.64,7.67 (use box plots for part a in 7.67)
Friday, November 19	8.1 &  8.2	Comparing two proportions	Each project group should give me one copy of the data they have collected or simulated.  Identify all team members on this data sheet.
Monday, November 22	9.1 & 9.2	Two way tables	Exercises: 8.1cd,8.10cd,8.15,8.19,8.23,8.34,8.36
Wednesday, November 24	9.1 & 9.2
Friday, November 26	Thanksgiving Holiday		No Class
Monday, November 29	Catchup day chapters 8 &  9
Wednesday, December 1	10.1 & 10.2	Inference for regression	Exercises: 9.10,9.21,10.15,10.21,10.29
Friday, December 3	10.1 & 10.2		Please read at least one other student's  project paper and suggest revisions.  Please follow all the requirements of the project carefully (see the syllabus).  Send me an e-mail message telling me whose paper you read and commented upon.
Monday, December 6	Catchup day chapter 10 and start chapter 12		Turn in your project paper.
Wednesday, December 8	Chapter 12  (through p 761)  Skip Chapter 11	One-way analysis of variance	Exercises: 10.15,10.21,10.29 Schedule your study group to prepare for the final
Friday, December 10	Chapter 12
Monday, December 13	Catch up day and review		Exercises: 12.9,12.11 (use a calculator),12.17,12.19,12.24
Wednesday, December 15 8:00 - 10:00am	Comprehensive Final Exam

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