Math& 146 Introduction to Statistics
Item Number: 3146 CW
Dates: January 4 – March 23, 2016
Days: Monday thru Friday
Time: 10:00 – 10:50 am
Classroom: RAI 335
Final Exam: Wed, March 23, 11:00-1:00
No Class: Jan 18, Feb 15, 16, 26, March 18
Last day to withdraw: Monday, February 22
Instructor: Pete Kaslik
Office: Rainier 344
Phone: (253) 964-6635
Office Hours: Mon – Fri 11-11:50
Email: pkaslik@pierce.ctc.edu
Website: http://www.pierce.ctc.edu/staff/pkaslik/
Text: Foundations in Statistical Reasoning, First Edition, by Pete Kaslik
Prerequisites: 2.0 in Math 96 or placement test score above Math 96
Supplies: Graphing Calculator (TI-83 or TI-84)
Course Objectives: Introduction to the analysis of data using descriptive statistics, probability,
and inferential statistics. Topics include: data collection methods; measures of center and
variation; graphical presentation of data; probability; binomial and normal distributions;
confidence intervals; hypothesis tests of one and two parameters, using the normal, Student-t, and
chi-square distributions; linear correlation and regression.
Student Expectations: Students are expected to attend all classes and are responsible for all
information presented. Students are responsible for their own learning. Learning is
accomplished by in-class listening and participation, reading the text, doing the homework and
thinking about the concepts until they make sense.
Appropriate behavior is expected. Chitchat disturbs people near you. Be respectful to others.
Please turn cell phones off, save text messages for after class.
Evaluation:
Exams (65%): Five unit exams will be given. All exam scores will count toward your
grade. Exam numbers (Exam 1-2, Exam 3-4, Exam 5, Exam 6-7, and Exam 8-9-F)
correspond to the chapters that will be included in the exam. The last exam will occur on
the day scheduled for final exams.
Notify me in advance if you will be missing an exam. Make arrangements to take the
exam the next day. Exams taken late will lose points. Late points accumulate.
Active Learning and Engagement (15%): In-class and out-of-class activities will be
given to help you learn the concepts. Partial make up of some missed in-class activities
may be possible.
Project (15%): A group project is required.
Homework (5%): Most of the learning occurs while doing homework. Working in
groups is encouraged, but each person must complete and submit their own homework
assignments. Homework is due at the beginning of the exam period as a way of
demonstrating that you have prepared for the exam. Late homework is not accepted. To
earn maximum credit for homework, it must be on the pages from the book, organized,
complete with detailed work that includes formulas, substitution, solutions, calculator
inputs, graphs or curves and answers to follow-up questions. Some answers are available
in the back of the book.
Pierce College Core Abilities: College is a time for personal and intellectual growth and
development. Pierce College has defined 5 core abilities that will prepare students for the
dynamic world in which we live. These core abilities are: Critical Thinking/Problem Solving,
Effective Communication, Information Competency, Multiculturalism, and Responsibility. Math
problems and the project will require critical thinking and problem solving skills and effective
communication. On time completion of assigned work and preparation for exams develops
personal responsibility skills.
Grades:
End of quarter grades will be given based on the grade function G(P).
G(P) = 4.0 if P ≥ 95
0.1P – 5.5 if 65 ≤ P < 95
0.0 if P < 65
Where P is the percentage of possible points.
Incompletes are not given.
A grade report will be provided to you as an Excel attachment in an email that is sent to your
Pierce College student gmail account. You can find a link on my website for having these emails
forwarded to any other account.
Academic Honesty. This course contains a mixture of individual and collaborative efforts.
Exams are individual efforts. A grade of 0 may be given to everyone involved in cheating on an
exam. Cell phones or other electronics (besides acceptable calculators) may not be used during
exams.
Administrative Withdrawal: Students who are not in attendance during the first 2 days of class
will be withdrawn from the class.
Special needs: Students with disabilities, who believe they may need academic adjustments,
auxiliary aids, or service to fully participate in course activities or meet course requirements are
encouraged to register with the Access and Disability Services (ADS) Office, Cascade 301 in the
Welcome Center on the third floor of the Cascade Building. Students requesting
accommodations must obtain the "Approved Quarterly Academic Adjustments, Auxiliary Aids or
Services Green Form" provided by ADS.” For more information contact the ADS Office –
Cascade Building, Welcome Center, 253-964-6526/6527.
Extra Help: The Tutoring Center offers math Drop-In tutoring, and has individual tutors.
These services are FREE!
In Cascade 504 drop-in tutoring is available. M-Th 8 am – 7 pm; Fri 8 am – 2 pm.
In Rainier 338 (the Math Center) drop-in tutoring is available about 8 am – 1 pm.
School Closure: School closures due to weather are listed at http://www.schoolreport.org.
Changes: Changes to this syllabus will be announced in class.
Statistics Project
Winter 2016
The skills taught in this class are used in the business, social science and scientific communities.
This project will require the organized and integrated use of important skills to answer a question of
significance.
This is intended to be a college level project that includes a clearly defined question about a problem
of significance, data collection, analysis and a well-written report. Projects will be done individually or in
groups of 2, 3 or 4 students.
Strategy for choosing a topic
Pick a topic that is of interest to you. Sports minded people might find it interesting to test the
predictive capabilities of sports writers. Students with jobs may find it interesting and useful to their
employer to do a work-related project. Those interested in world issues may prefer to use data sets that
have been collected by government agencies. It can be helpful to discuss ideas with me so that your project
is appropriate for this class – neither too trivial nor too grand. Consider doing a service-learning project,
which can benefit you and someone else. Surveys are not acceptable.
Project Report
Your project report must consist of an abstract, introduction, methods, results, and conclusion. This
project must be word-processed to be accepted. It should mimic the style of scholarly journals.
Abstract
The abstract is the last thing you will write, but the first to appear in your paper. It contains a
brief explanation of the problem, what was done and the results. Abstracts are usually bold printed and
sometimes in italics. They are single-spaced.
Introduction
In the introduction, explain the problem to be analyzed. Your first sentence should engage the
reader’s interest. Clearly state the question you are attempting to answer along with your hypothesis. The
reader should understand your alternate hypothesis by inference, meaning that you don’t use the words null
and alternate or H0, H1 but state it more subtly such as “… determine if the weight is less than ten pounds”.
The introduction is where you will also help the reader understand the implications of the issue in
the context of decisions they should make. If the null hypothesis is true, then individuals (or society) should
make one choice. If the alternate is true, individuals should make a different choice. Explain these choices.
Methods
Explain your sampling protocol and method for conducting the study in sufficient detail that it
could be replicated. Define terms if necessary.
Results
This section will contain the descriptive and inferential statistics. Use the graphs, statistics and
hypothesis test results to help the reader understand what the sample data suggests about the subject of
your research. A logical order of the analysis is to discuss the graph, show the graph, provide the
appropriate statistics and finally give the results of the hypothesis test.
An example of the way in which statistics can be written is: The mean of the 37 sample weights is
8.9 lbs, the standard deviation is 5.54 lbs. The 95% confidence interval is (7.1,10.8).
For hypothesis test results, state the hypothesis test that is used and whether or not there was a
significant result and put the test statistic, p-value and n (or df) in parentheses after the
statement. For example, “The results of the one sample T-test show the mean weight is not
significantly less than 10 lbs (t = -1.16, p = 0.13, df = 36)”.
Conclusion
Read your introduction. Summarize what you found about the original topic, explain what the
descriptive statistics showed and interpret the results of the inferential statistics. You should elaborate on
the choices an individual should make now that the results of the hypothesis test are known. Write in
“English”, not in “statistics”. This is the chance to reduce all the technical/mathematical information to
something that is readable by the general population.
Appendix
The appendix should contain the hypothesis test calculations or computer printouts from an
ANOVA, regression or Chi Squared analysis. It may also contain the data.
Grading
The draft and final project must be word-processed and submitted on paper. Points for this project will be
assigned as follows.
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Review-Past-Projects Activity Due Tuesday, January 12
Project question, hypothesis and design layout table, Tuesday, January 26
Library, Monday, February 8
Consultations
Complete Final Project, due Thursday, March 17
Total
18 points
20 points
20 points
20 points
200 points
278 points
Consultations
Because a poorly done project does not result in the student learning, students should consult with
me prior to the final submission. Consulting points can only be earned by the students who are actually
present at the consultation once the project is sufficiently completed. Consultation points are reduced as the
deadline approaches. 20 points are given for 1 week or more before the deadline, 15 points for the week of
the deadline. To earn these points, the project must include the introduction, methods and analysis (writing,
statistics and graphs) at a minimum. All group members must attend the consultation together. In the event
this is not possible, points given to those who come will be proportional to the size of the group who attend.
Of course, earlier consultations can be done to make sure you are on the right track.
Grading the final project
Effective communication of research requires good writing, good statistical analysis and
enhancements that provide sufficient additional and relevant information. Consequently, the distribution of
grading for this project will be: Statistical Elements (graphs, statistics, hypothesis test results) – 100 points,
Writing (appropriate sections, grammar, precision, language of researchers, references) – 50 points,
Enhancements – 50 points. Late papers lose 20 points per day. Up to 10 bonus points are available for
service learning projects. A more detail explanation is available on my website.
General suggestions:
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Ask for feedback. It is common for students to consult with me at various stages of the project.
DO NOT ask questions within your paper (e.g. not in abstract or introduction). Make statements.
Throughout the report, focus on the problem as compared to the statistics. Include the statistics, of
course, but in such a way that they explain the problem, not so that they are the focus of the
project. Do not tell the reader you will find the mean, standard deviation, etc. just report them.
Do not mention Type I or Type II errors
All values should have one more decimal place than the number of significant digits in your data.
In particular, Excel usually gives about 8 decimal places for standard deviations and correlation
coefficients. Use normal rounding rules to reduce the number of decimals. Proportions can go to 3
decimal places (i.e. .345 or 34.5%), Z values should have 2 or 3 decimal places, depending upon
what is given in the table.
Project length: Projects are to be as long as they need to be, but not longer. Most projects are
between 2 and 4 pages long. You do not need a title page or fancy folder. A staple will be
sufficient.
Review Past Projects Activity – Due Tuesday, January 12
Name________________________________Points ________/18
For part c of each question, fill in the blank space before the word “______significantly”
with either “IS” or “IS NOT” and fill in the remaining blanks. A video is available on my
website to help you with this activity.
Project 1 – Mark Aballe – Effect of Home Field Advantage Among Professional Sports
Championships
(1) 1a. Which statistic is used: means, proportions, or correlations?
1a____________
(1) 1b. Which graph is used: pie chart, histogram, or scatter plot?
1b____________
(4) 1c. Complete this sentence: The percent of times that the team with the home field advantage
wins the championship ___________ significantly higher than 50% (z = __________, p =
_____________, n = _________).
Project 2 – Anna Campanoli – Comparison of two techniques for memorizing facts
(1) 2a. Which statistic is used: means, proportions, or correlations?
2a____________
(1) 2b. Which graph is used: pie chart, histogram, or scatter plot?
2b____________
(4) 2c. Complete this sentence: The interval method ___________ significantly better than the
block time method (t = ___________, p = _____________, df = _________).
Project 3 – Angela Kim, Odilia Lirani, Siu Fung Hung – Correlation between gun ownership rates
and crime rates.
(1) 3a. Which statistic is used: means, proportions, or correlations?
3a____________
(1) 3b. Which graph is used: pie chart, histogram, or scatter plot?
3b____________
(4) 3c. Complete this sentence: There ___________a significant correlation between gun
ownership rates and the crime rate (t = ___________, p = _____________, n = _________).