AS1.10 Statistics for Social Scientists
http://www.city.ac.uk/international/actuaria.htm
Students who take this course must have a good mathematical background and an
interest in the precise derivation of statistical formulae.
Introduction to the ideas of statistics at an elementary level of mathematical knowledge.
The topics will include:
The presentation of statistical data: pie and bar charts, histograms and ogives.
Measures of location and dispersion: for grouped and ungrouped data. Arithmetic
mean, median and mode. Quartiles and percentiles. Variance and standard deviation.
Probability and distributions: ideas of probability, probability of an event. Addition and
multiplication rules, independent events. Ideas of random variable and probability
density functions. Expectation of a random variable. Binomial, Poisson and Normal
distributions - their properties and the situations they model.
Elementary sampling theory and estimation: random sampling. Sampling distributions
of means, differences of means and proportions. Standard errors. Point and interval
estimates. Testing of hypotheses: ideas of hypothesis testing - null and alternative
hypotheses, two types of errors. Tests on means, differences between means and
proportions - normal and t-distributions. Contingency tables and chi-square test.
Correlation. Product-moment correlation coefficient and rank correlation coefficient their calculations and interpretation. Simple linear regression model: estimation of
coefficients by the method of least square. r2 as a measure of goodness of fit.
Elementary ideas of analysis of variance.
Time series: general introduction, determination of trend, seasonal adjustments.
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Introductory Statistics: Concepts, Models, and Applications by David Stockburger A helpful
online book for applied users.
Multivariate Statistics: Concepts, Models, and Applications by David Stockburger Another
helpful online book for applied users.
Visual Statistics You can learn basic stat concepts and simple analysis through a freely
downloadable program (module expires 7 days after download). Rich in graphics, good for
beginners.
Seeing Statistics See visual presentations of basic statistical concepts and tests online. Has very
friendly and easy-to-manipulate graphics. Good for beginners.
The Statistics Home Page Stat dictionary: works better as a book than a dictionary. Quick way to
learn various statistical techniques.
StatNotes Online Textbook Online textbook: Has short summary of various multivariate
techniques.
Rainer’s Web Site for Statisticians: Statistical Quotes
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Rainer_Wuerlaender/statquot.htm
HyperStat Online Introductory Statistics Textbook: http://davidmlane.com/hyperstat/