Basic statistical concepts and techniques introduced through a series of case studies of interesting public policy issues. The cases illustrate various kinds of data collection methods with their own strengths and weaknesses. Emphasis on uses of statistics in everyday situations, such as interpreting news reports. Course makes minimal use of mathematics. Weekly quiz, midterm, final and short paper.
Statistics is the science of data.
This science involves collecting, summarizing, organizing, analyzing, and interpreting data. Statistics is also the art of making numerical conjectures about puzzling questions. Some computation to solve real data problems will be involved, but the emphasis of the course is on understanding the concepts presented. Topics to be discussed are design of experiments, summarization of data, correlation, regression, probability and chance, survey sampling, estimation, and tests of significance. Two lectures per week.