Statistical Theory: Course Syllabus
- Instructor:
- Dr.
John R. Wicks, email: jwicks@northpark.edu,
weekly
schedule
-
- Office:
- W10B (basement of Carlson Tower, across from Lounge Area)
-
- Office Hours:
- See weekly
schedule for current hours. Please feel free to call
or email for an
appointment at any time I am not scheduled.
-
- Phone:
- (773) 244-5652 office
- (773) 262-7621 home (before 10 pm.)
-
- Class Schedule:
- See weekly
schedule for current location and hours.
-
- Text:
- Hogg and Tanis, Probability and Statistical Inference, sixth ed.
-
- Goals:
- In this course, our main goals are two-fold: to learn how
probability and statistical theory are used in practice
to make informed decisions, and to become more familiar
with the definition - notation - theorem - proof
structure of higher mathematics. This is admittedly a
tall order for a one-semester course, so we will not be
able to take a comprehensive approach, but rather will
try to "breadth-first" approach to the
material, learning the requisite mathematical
preliminaries as needed.
-
- This is an upper-division math class and so will
not simply provide statistical "recipes", but
rather help to develop your mathematical and statistical
reasoning faculties. Not only will you be expected to
learn how to solve problems, but you should be conscious
of what you are doing and why. Moreover, you will
also be expected to learn any relevant definitions or
theorems that arise during the course. Some of the
important ideas will be:
-
- Random variables, distributions, and the
expectation of a random variables.
- Basic statistics: mean, variance, standard
deviation, median, etc.
- Independence, correlation, and conditional
probability.
- Definitions and properties of the standard
distributions: Bernoulli, Binomial, Geometric,
and Normal.
- Confidence intervals and hypothesis testing.
- Estimation of parameters given sample data: point
estimates vs. interval estimates.
- Tests involving a bivariate normal distribution
or so called "linear regression".
- Nonparametric methods for estimating an entire
distribution.
-
- Homework:
- Homework will be assigned daily, with the schedule to be updated
regularly, and collected on Wednesdays. Homework should
be well-labeled and neatly organized. Plan on spending at
least two hours outside of class for every hour in
class.
-
- Grading:
- Grades will be computed as follows:
| In class exams (3) |
45 % |
| Final |
25 % |
| Homework |
15 % |
| Projects (2) |
15 % |
-
- Summary sheets indicating the material to appear on Exam 1, Exam 2, and Exam 3 will be made available.
- Grades will be available for each student. Simply enter
your email
name and password.