Statistics is a mixture of common sense, mathematical methods, and communication skills. In this course, most mathematical methods you will use are pre-programmed for you into Minitab. We will discuss some of the mathematical ideas and statistical motivations behind those methods in class, most of your work will involve choosing an appropriate method, critically evaluating real datasets, and communicating your results so that any one (think, perhaps, of your grandmother) can understand you.
Researchers often use statistics to try to PROVE causal relationships. We will discuss in class situations where this is appropriate and situations where this is not appropriate.
Researchers also often use statistics to draw conclusions about whole populations. Again, we will discuss in class situations where this is appropriate and situations where this is not appropriate.
We will discuss briefly different kinds of sampling methods although the course will focus primarily on simple random sampling.
We will discuss the interpretation of p-values as a measure of how likely/unlikely the data is under certain assumptions and how that is interpreted as how likely/unlikely those assumptions are.
Data used are the following numbers for student scores with a weekly help session that includes/does not include a self-esteem boosting component.
Treatment Control
10 5
15 9
16 10
16 10
17 14
19 18
20 20