STA429/1007: Statistics for the Life and Social Sciences

University of Toronto, Fall/Winter 2007

http://fisher.utstat.toronto.edu/~brunner/429f07

Lecture: Tuesday 10:10 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. and Thursday 10:10 a.m. - 12:00 noon, Room 1074, Sidney Smith Hall

• Instructor: Jerry Brunner
• Office: 6025B, Sidney Smith Hall
• Phone: 416-946-0673 (only during office hours)
• email: brunner_at_utstat.toronto.edu (you know: _at_ means @)
• Office Hours: Tuesday 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Text: There is no textbook for this course at the bookstore. A free online text will be available on the course home page. The first few chapters are posted now. Material in this text overlaps with lectures.

Topics: Vocabulary of data analysis, Tests of statistical significance, Principles of research design, Introduction to unix, Introduction to SAS, Multiple regression, Basic time series analysis, Factorial ANOVA, Random effects models, Multivariate analysis of variance, Repeated measures, Introduction to R, Randomization and Bootstrap tests.

Prerequisites: Any introductory statistics class, taught by any department.

Grading: For undergraduates (those in STA429), marks will be based upon equally weighted weekly quizzes. There will be no final exam. Graduate students (those in STA1007) will take the same quizzes, and also do a data analysis project using real data from their fields of study. For graduate students, marks will be based 50% on the quizzes and 50% on the project. Please discuss your plans for the project with Jerry some time around Halloween. Note that the projects need not have a Halloween theme, and there is no requirement that they be related to the occult or the supernatural in any way.

Quizzes will be given at the beginning of class (10:10 am) almost every Thursday starting Sept. 20th. Quiz dates are Sept. 20, 27; Oct. 4, 11, 18, 25; Nov. 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29, for a total of 11 quizzes. The lowest quiz mark will be dropped.

There will be an assignment for each quiz. The knowledge you need to do each quiz is a subset of the knowledge you need to do the corresponding assignment. Some (most) of the assignments include a computer part. You will bring printouts to the quiz and answer questions based on the printouts. Possibly, one of the quiz questions will be to hand in a printout. The non-computer parts of the assignments are just to prepare you for the quizzes; they will never be handed in.

Plagiarism: The computer assignments are not group projects. It is fine to discuss the assignments and to learn from each other, but don't copy. Never look at anyone else's printouts (especially the input) or show anyone your printouts before the quiz when they might be handed in.