Classes

Times and locations for all classes can be found on the University web site at: www.timetables.mq.edu.au

Lectures: You are required to attend 3 x 1 hour lectures each week, beginning in Week 1.

Tutorials: You are required to attend 1 x 1 hour tutorial each week, beginning in Week 2.

Required and Recommended Texts and/or Materials

We will be using material from several online textbooks:

SurfStat at http://surfstat.anu.edu.au/surfstat-home/surfstat.html is a complete introductory statistics course, with a useful section on Statistical Inference with a sub-section on correlation and regression (but no ANOVA). HyperStat Online at http://davidmlane.com/hyperstat/index.html is at an intermediate level, chapter 12 and first part of 13, and chapter 15 cover the material (with background in chapter 1). Chapter 5 contains the best online table of the normal distribution (see http://davidlane.com/hyperstat/normal_distribution.html - try it!) StatSoft Electronic Textbook at http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/stathome.html is more advanced, and material is covered in sections called ANOVA/MANOVA and Linear Regression (with Elementary Concepts and Basic Statistics for background).

You may prefer a physical textbook: the material is covered in chapters 10–13 of D. Moore, G. McCabe & B. Craig (2012), Introduction to the Practice of Statistics, 7^th Edition, W.H. Freeman. This book (and many others) provides lots of good explanations and examples, and includes a useful summary of earlier material required by this course. I prefer not to make its use compulsory, but it is available from the Co-op Bookshop (or elsewhere), and any previous edition (by these three authors or by Moore & McCabe) is equally useful.

Other references:

Moore, D.S., McCabe, G. P. and Craig, B.A. (2012) Introduction to the Practice of Statistics, Seventh Edition (W.H. Freeman) HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

De Veaux, R.D., Velleman, P.F. and Bock, D.E. (2004) Stats Data and Models (Pearson) HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Ramsay, F.L. and Schafer, D.W. (2002) The Statistical Sleuth (Wadsworth) HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Anderson, J. and Poole, M. (2002) Thesis and Assignment Writing (Wiley)

Chatterjee, S. Hadi, A. and Price, B. (2006) Regression Analysis By Example (Wiley)

Devore, J. and Peck, R (2005) Statistics The Exploration and Analysis of Data (Brooks/Cole)

Ryan, B.F. , Joiner, B.L. and Cryer, J.D. (2005) Minitab Handbook (Duxbury)

Utts, J.M. and Heckard, R. F. (2004) Mind on Statistics, (Duxbury Press)

Utts, J.M. and Heckard, R. F. (2006) Statistical Ideas and Methods, (Duxbury Press)

Calculators: Although the course will not focus on calculations, you will need to have (and be able to use) a calculator with statistical mode for the final examination (the one you used for your first-year unit in statistics will be fine).

Computing:

The statistical software Minitab version 16 will be the main package used, and is installed in the computer labs used for classes. In addition, we will be using a software package called Arc.

As a Macquarie student, you can obtain a copy of Minitab for home use, downloaded from the student portal from the tab labelled ‘software downloads’. This location gives details of how to download and install the package onto your machine. Arc is also available as a free download from http://www.stat.umn.edu/arc/ (I’ll give more details when we start to use it). We will also occasionally use other (free) software packages, to illustrate particular points

Technology Used and Required

Unit Web Page

Navigate from http://www.stat.mq.edu.au/undergraduate_programs/stat_units/stat_units200/stat270/ and http://ilearn.mq.edu.au/

This unit will have a Discussions forum, iLectures and other material available online through the University's Online Teaching Facility, iLearn. A link will be available through the Stat270 web page, as well as from ilearn.mq.edu.au. Use your student ID number and your myMQ Student Portal Password to access the site. Consult the web page and Discussions forum frequently (at least once a week). Useful guides on using the Online Teaching Facility are also available at this site.

Teaching and Learning Strategy

Students in Stat270 will attend 3 x 1 hour lectures and 1x 1 hour tutorial. 

Lectures begin in week 1 with an overview of the unit and an introduction to the most important ideas. Lectures in weeks 2-5 will present an overview of the range of techniques that we will be using. During weeks 6-11, while you are working on your project, lectures will focus on important aspects of the process of statistical investigation. The last two weeks will be used for summary and revision lectures.

Tutorial classes begin in week 2 and are designed to complement the work discussed in the lectures: they are not optional, and will form an essential part of your learning process. Some classes are held in tutorial mode, working on problems and discussing their solutions. Others are held in a computing lab to allow you to practise techniques learnt in lectures using prepared worksheets.

All lecture and tutorial material will be available on iLearn: you may print such material in advance and bring it to classes, or you may load it onto your iPad or laptop computer and bring that along.

At Macquarie University it is expected that the average student would spend approximately 3 - 4 hours per week for each credit point in a unit. This means that for Stat270 you should expect to spend approximately 9-12 hours per week in both formal classes and independent work.