STA442/2101: Methods of Applied Statistics

University of Toronto, Fall 2013

http://www.utstat.toronto.edu/~brunner/appliedf13

Lecture: Friday 2:10-5:00 in SS2118.

Note: I do not read my email every day, and the problem tends to get worse as the term progresses. It is much more efficient to talk with me before or after class, or during office hours.

Textbook: Statistical models (2003) by A. C. Davison. It is available in pdf format free through the U of T library. Other background reading materials will be available on the course home page.

Topics: Large-sample tools, Simulation, Likelihood methods, Normal linear models, Factorial ANOVA, Multiple comparisons, Power and sample size, Random effects, Multivariate linear models, Within-cases designs, Logistic regression and other generalized linear models, Permutation tests, Bootstrapping. We will use R and SAS.

Prerequisite: For STA2101, a course in linear regression; for STA442, STA303 or equivalent.

Grading: There will be a quiz each week in lecture, starting Friday September 20th. There will also be a comprehensive final exam. The quizzes count for 70% of your mark, and the final exam will count 30%.

There will be eleven 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.

Undergraduate and graduate students will take the same weekly quizzes, and the same criteria for marking will be employed. There will be a separate and more challenging final examination for the graduate students.

Policy for missed work: If you miss a quiz, the mark is zero. However, your lowest quiz mark will be dropped. If you miss a quiz with a valid excuse, your mark on the final exam will be substituted for the missing quiz mark.

Academic Honesty: It is an academic offense to present someone else's work as your own, or to allow your work to be copied for this purpose. To repeat: the person who allows her/his work to be copied is equally guilty, and subject to disciplinary action by the university.

It is fine to discuss the assignments and to learn from each other, but there are clear limits on what is acceptable. It is okay to discuss the meaning of the question. It is okay to discuss general principles related to the question. It is okay, and encouraged, to discuss examples from lecture or textbook that are similar to the question. It is okay to reveal your approach to solving a problem, but only to somebody who has tried the problem and is really stuck. Even then, it is better to ask questions (like "Well, what's the model?" Or "All we've got is the Law of Large Numbers. Does anything in this expresion look like a sample mean?") instead of just giving your answer. A good rule is to never help someone who hasn't started yet.

But above all, don't copy, and don't let anyone else copy from you. You are expected to do the work yourself, and then perhaps compare answers after you have done so.

You might be surprised to know how easy it is to detect copying on computer assignments. Here are some guidelines:

It is acceptable to get help with your assignments from someone outside the class, but the help must be limited to general discussion and examples that are not the same as the assignment. As soon as you get an outside person to actually start working on one of your assignments, you have committed an academic offense. (Unless the person refuses to tell you the answer and just laughs at you because it was so easy.)

For more detail, the latest version of the student handout "How not to Plagiarize" is available at http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/using-sources/how-not-to-plagiarize The Academic Regulations of the University are outlined in the Code of Behaviour on Academic matters, which can be found in the Arts and Science Calendar or on the web at http://www.governingcouncil.utoronto.ca/policies/behaveac.htm.