STA 1020 (Elementary Statistics)
Fall 2009 Section 009, CRN 16003
Professor Drucker

Instructor: Daniel Drucker, Professor of Mathematics  Office: 1173 FAB   Math Dept Office: 1150 FAB
Phone: Call 313 577-3189 (my office), or call the Math Dept at 313 577-2479 and ask the staff member to leave a message in my box.
E-mail: drucker@math.wayne.edu   URL (World Wide Web): http://www.math.wayne.edu/~drucker
Office hours: WF 2:10 &ndash 3:30 p.m. I suggest that you make an appointment before coming to the office. You can do that before or after class, or by phone or e-mail. (If you don’t make an appointment, I don’t guarantee to be in the office when you arrive. I may leave to make copies, take care of clerical work, return library books, etc.) I’m sometimes available by appointment at other times for students whose schedules conflict with my office hours. Also, to the extent that time permits, I will try to answer questions that you send me by e-mail.

Course content: The Bulletin description says “Descriptive statistics, correlation and regression, notions in probability, binomial and normal distributions, testing hypotheses.” The purpose of the course is to teach the basic concepts (and some elementary methods) in statistics with minimal use of mathematics. A student who has learned the material in this course should have some knowledge of how data is collected, how to organize and display the data, and how to interpret and draw conclusions from the data.

Tentative coverage:

Chapters 1–3, 5, 6, 8, 10–15, 17, 18, 20–22, 24. The material can be broken down as follows:

Part I. Producing Data

Chapters 1–3: methods of sampling

Chapters 5 and 6: design of experiments

Chapter 8: precision and reduction of bias

Part II. Organizing Data

Chapters 10–13: different ways of displaying and summarizing data, propoerties of normal distributions

Chapters 14 and 15: scatterplots, the concept of correlation, and the use of regression lines in making predictions

Part III. Chance

Chapters 17, 18, and 20: probability, expected values, and the law of large numbers

Part IV. Statistical Inference

Chapters 21, 22, and 24: formal statistical reasoning.

Parts III and IV together can be thought of as covering the broad topic Analyzing Data. We will spend about one class on each section, two classes for longer sections.

Assignments: Exercises will not be collected or graded, but will be discussed in class as needed. See the assignments web page for a list of the assigned exercises for each section. For homework policies, see WHAT I EXPECT FROM YOU below.

Tests: I plan to give tests (quizzes or exams) every one to two weeks. Exams are tentatively scheduled as follows: Exam 1 (after Part I), around Wed., Oct. 7; Exam 2 (after Part II), around Mon., Nov. 9; and Exam 3 (near the end of Part IV) around Wed., Dec. 9. Blue books are not required on hour exams. It is enough to bring an exam booklet, by which I mean a bunch of pages of blank paper, clipped or stapled together. The final exam will be Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2009, 8:00–10:30 a.m. in our regular room. Remember to bring a blue book for the final exam!

Course Grade: Items will be weighted as follows: quizzes, 50 points total (with the worst quiz dropped); best two exams, 40 points each, third exam 20 points; final exam 80 points. If you are near the boundary between two grades, I will use attendance, class participation, and the trend of your performance in the class to determine your course grade.
Letter Grades (as intervals of percentages): A [88, 100],  A– [85, 88),  B+ [82, 85),  B [73, 82),  B– [70, 73),  C+ [67, 70),  C [58, 67),  C– [55, 58),  D+ [53, 55),  D [47, 53),  D– [45, 47),  E [0, 45)
Changes in WSU’s Grading Policy (effective Fall 2006): I expect you to inform yourselves about WSU’s revised Grading Policy. The new policy limits how many times you may repeat a course, replaces the grade "E" with "F", places stronger restrictions on "I" grades, eliminates the "X" grade, and replaces the grade of "W" with three new grades: WP (withdrawal with a passing grade earned to date), WF (withdrawal with a failing grade earned to date), and WN (withdrawal given to students who did not attend any classes and/or did not complete any assignments and/or did not participate in credit-earning activities by the withdrawal date). It is important to note that students are responsible for notifying the instructor of the exact date of withdrawal from a class; i.e., the date on which the student reports the withdrawal to Registration and Scheduling in accordance with University policy.
    WARNING: Any student who stops attending this class without filing an official withdrawal form and notifying me of the exact date of withdrawal will receive a course grade of F.

Role of calculators and computers: Use of calculators and/or computers on assignments is recommended. The authors recommend that you use a calculator capable of doing two-variable statistics, one that will calculate correlation and regression lines as well as means and stanard deviations. They say that such calculators cost about $15 at discount stores. If you don’t understand how to use your calculator and you have a manual for it, I’ll be happy to help. I will allow the use of calculators on tests, provided you show enough work to convince me that you could have done the problem by hand and only used the calculator to help with the arithmetic. This course does not require the use of a computer, but if you use a good spreadsheet program like Excel or statistical software like Minitab (or one of the other packages I describe on my annotated list), you will be able to manipulate the data more easily and view it graphically.

WHAT I EXPECT FROM YOU:

Check your WSU e-mail.

I expect all of you to check e-mail regularly, so that I can send you written messages. Click here for information on WSU e-mail. If you do not use the WSU e-mail address assigned to you, then set up your WSU e-mail so that it forwards e-mail to your preferred address. (Click here for instructions on how to forward your WSU mail to another e-mail address.)
    IMPORTANT: When you write to me, always include “STA 1020” in the subject line of your e-mail message, and always sign the message with your full name. I don’t want to have to figure out who you are from your e-mail address.

Attend all classes.

If you must miss a class, tell me in advance if possible; otherwise contact me that day. (If you can’t reach me at my office, send me an e-mail message or call the Math Dept and leave a message as indicated above under the heading Phone. Be sure to mention your name and phone number, the course number, and the reason for your absence.) This is crucial with regard to tests, since I may let you take a test at a different time if you give me enough notice, but I won’t write make-up tests.
    Make a point of exchanging contact information with at least a couple of other students in the class, so that you’ll be able to obtain notes and assignments in the event that you have to miss a class.
    In class, I expect you to pay attention to what’s going on, and participate whenever possible. Cell phones and pagers should be turned off before you enter the room. It is your responsibility to sign the sign-in sheet at the beginning of each class.

Read the material in the text—carefully—before we discuss it in class.

Class time will be used to review fundamental concepts in the book by use of examples. I won’t discuss everything that’s in the book, nor will I always do things the way they’re done in the book. But you’re responsible for all the material in the sections we discuss (except material I specifically exclude) and all the material covered in class.
    IMPORTANT NOTE: When reviewing for tests, start with your class notes and give highest priority to things done only (or differently) in class. After that, study the text and the exercises.

Keep up with the assignments.

Exercises will be assigned well in advance. Do them as we get to them. Don’t fall behind! It’s tough to catch up. Solving lots of exericses is the best way to learn the material. My assignments should be regarded as the minimum you should do. Whenever possible, do extra exercises. Suggestion: Keep your exercise solutions together—separate from your class notes—in a binder that allows you to insert and remove pages, and organize it by chapter number, section number, and exercise number.

Ask questions!

It’s your responsibility to ask about anything you don’t understand (including the operation of your calculator). Write down the things that bother you while you’re reading the text or working on exercises, so you’ll be ready with a list of questions when you come to class and/or office hours. I usually ask for questions at the beginning of each class. There’s no such thing as a stupid question—usually other students are grateful that you asked the question, and I need to know what the class finds hard.

Think about the material and discuss it with other students.

You’ll remember the facts or techniques that you figure out on your own more easily than those that other people show you.