Welcome to the Statistics homepage for Spring 2010. More features will appear over time. If you're a student in the class you can log-in at the top-right of the screen with your Marlboro College username and password and more menu options will pop-up on the left.

Statistics is the science---and art---of extracting data from the world around us and organising, summarising and analysing it in order to draw conclusions or make predictions. The core of the course follows Chapters 1 to 12, Chapters 14 to 19, and Chapters 22 to 25 of David S. Moore's "The Basic Practice of Statistics" (4th ed.) (with a few omissions to be announced as we proceed). Topics include: probability theory, collecting and describing data, hypothesis testing, correlation and regression, and analysis of variance. In addition to this core, we pursue a small number of other topics depending on the interests of the class. Options include more probability theory, a wider array of statistical tests, and more experience with "real world" applications. Two themes running through the course are the use of statistics in the natural and social sciences and the use (and abuse) of statistics by the news media.

Your final grade will be weighted as follows. Quizzes: 10%; group project: 10%; final project: 20%; homework assignments: 20%; final exam: 40%. Homework will be assigned approximately once every two weeks. There will be two in-class quizzes during the semester and an optional third quiz during reading days---your best two will be worth 5% each. The group project will be due before mid-term and involve a presentation and write-up on some aspect of life at Marlboro College. The final project will also consist of a write-up and a class presentation and will involve either examining the use of statistics in some aspect of public life or looking at a specific use of statistics in your principal academic field. The final will be a 24-hour open-book take-home exam.

You are expected to be aware of the college's policy on academic integrity and to abide by it. It can be found here. Please come and talk to me if anything is unclear.

http://cs.marlboro.edu/ courses/ spring2010/statistics/ home
last modified Wednesday January 20 2010 10:29 am EST