Stat 113K.SUM09: Statistics and Society (Banner Course Number: 11300)
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Textbook
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Outline:
- Collecting Data
- Sampling: random samples; use of tables of random digits; sources of bias in sampling human populations; multistage and stratified samples; random selection as public policy.
Applications: Opinion polling, TV ratings, government economic and social statistics.
- Design of experiments: randomized comparative experiments; blocking and other elaborations; ethics of experimentation on human subjects.
Applications: medical experiments, social policy experiments.
- Measurement: bias, reliability and validity; scales of measurement; good and bad data.
Applications: measuring unemployment, critiquing the use of data in persuasion.
- Organizing and Describing Data
- Tables and graphs: bivariate frequency tables; common graphs and their abuses; frequency distributions; the normal distributions.
- Numerical summary measures: mean, median, mode; percentiles and boxplots; standard deviation and variance; correlation and regression; the question of causation.
Applications: smoking and health, standardized tests as predictors.
- Index numbers and related topics: index numbers, interpretation of time series data.
Applications: The Consumer Price Index; national economic indicators; social indicators.
- Formal Statistical Reasoning
- Probability: what is probability; simulation using random digits; expected values and the law of large numbers.
Applications: state lotteries.
- Confidence intervals: basic ideas, simulations.
Applications: return to opinion polling.
