Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session

Recitations: 1 session / week, 1.5 hours / session

Course Prerequisites

An understanding of Calculus and 6.041 Probabilistic Systems Analysis and Applied Probability or 18.440 Probability and Random Variables.

Overview

This course follows the main outline of the course textbook very closely, skipping over various parts:

Tamhane, Ajit C., and Dorothy D. Dunlop. Statistics and Data Analysis: From Elementary to Intermediate. Prentice Hall, 1999. ISBN: 9780137444267.

This is an introductory statistics class, assuming probability as a prerequisite. We will review probability (Chapter 2), discuss sampling techniques (Chapter 3), data summarization (Chapter 4), common sampling distributions (Chapter 5), statistical inference and hypothesis testing (Chapters 6-9), regression (Chapters 10-11), and nonparametric inference (Chapter 14).

Computing

We will use Excel, R, and MATLAB^® in the class. It is not required that students learn MATLAB for the course, though we will use it in class. To obtain R, please visit the R Project website.

Homework

The computer exercises are the only graded homework in this class. There is other homework assigned for this course, but it is optional, meaning that it will not count towards your final grade. The teaching assistant will answer questions about the homework during recitation. You are not permitted to work with others on the computer exercises; they are a type of take-home exam.

Examinations

There will be four exams over the course of the semester. Exams will be based mostly on recent material but can require knowledge of previously covered material.

Grading