MAA - Elementary Statistics

General Description

• Freshman level statistics course
• Pre-requisite: College Algebra
• Satisfies most general education mathematics requirement
• Satisfies the (basic) statistics requirement for Business Admin, Biology, Psychology, Health Sciences.
• Course incorporates a statistics package (Minitab, SPSS, R, etc)

Course Objectives

• Data production and analysis
• Probability basics, distributions
• Sampling, estimation with confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, t-test
• Correlation and regression
• Cross-tabulations and chi-square
• Students learn to use a statistical package such as SPSS.

Description of Problem Sets

Use of Problem Sets

The problem sets were assembled to allow for personalization by individual faculty. Sections or topics are meant to be simply deleted, only keeping the relevant parts for the course.

The names of the problem sets are meant to be descriptive and the learning objectives will help you evalaute if the set should be included or not.

Description of Problem Sets

• Set 01 Distributions with Graphs Students will be able to:
  • Use graphs to display data
  • Recognize different types of data
  • Interpret data from graphs

• Set 02 Distributions with Numbers Students will be able to:
  • Interpret data using numbers
  • Compute the mean, and standard deviation
  • Identify and use the five number summary.

• Set 03 The Normal Distribution and z-scores Students will be able to:
  • Recognize characteristics of the normal distribution
  • Calculate z-scores
  • Interpret z-scores

• Set 04 Scatterplots and Correlation Students will be able to:
  • Create scatterplots
  • Interpret scatterplots
  • Use the concept of correlation to interpret real data
  • Identify the shape of the scatterplot by the correlation coefficient.

• Set 05 Regression Students will be able to:
  • Model real life data with a least-squares regression line
  • Make predictions using regression

• Set 06 Two-Way Tables Students will be able to:
  • Construct two-way tables
  • Calculate relative risks
  • Identify causation based on relative risk

• Set 07 Data from Sampling Students will be able to:
  • Distinguish the difference between a population and a sample
  • Differentiate between different sampling techniques

• Set 08 Data through Experiments Students will be able to:
  • Distinguish between different experimental designs (double blind, etc)
  • Identify components of experiments (control groups, etc)
  • Describe the interactions of the components of the experiments
  • Identify different types of variables (lurking, explanatory, etc)

• Set 09 Introducing Probability Students will be able to:
  • Define the probability of an event
  • Compute conditional probability
  • Interpret probabilistic statements

WeBWorK Workshop, Raleigh North Carolina March 2013