STA 13 Elementary Statistics


Summary of course contents:

  • Basic statistical concepts: Population, sample, variability, sources of variability, parameter, experiment, replication, statistical reasoning.

  • Descriptive statistics: numerical methods (including mean, median, percentiles, variance, and standard deviation) and graphical methods (including histograms).

  • Basic probability concepts: sample space, events, probability, independence and conditional probability.

  • Probability models: discrete and continuous distributions, expectation and variance, and interpretations.

  • Binomial and normal distributions.

  • Sampling and sampling distributions: distribution of sample means and the difference between two independent sample means.

  • Distribution of sample proportions and the difference between two independent proportions.

  • Introduction to statistical inference for large and small samples: point and interval estimation for means and proportions in one-sample and two-sample settings.

  • Significance testing in these settings, including interpretation of results.

  • Analysis of categorical data: point estimation, chi-squared goodness of fit test, chi-squared test of independence.

  • Analysis of bivariate data: concepts of correlation and regression, the least squares line.

Illustrative reading:
An elementary statistics text such as:

  • "A First Course in Statistics" by James T. McClave and Terry Sinich

  • "Introduction to Probability and Statistics" by Mendenhall, Beaver and Beaver

  • "Mind On Statistics" by Jessica Utts and Robert Heckard

  • "Statistics: the Exploration and Analysis of Data" by J. Devore and R. Peck

Potential Overlap:
This course is intended to serve as the basic pre-calculus introduction to statistics and should not pose problems of course overlap at the introductory level for which it is intended. This course is identical in content to Statistics 13V.