Dr James Abdey, COL 7.09

Compulsory for BSc Actuarial Science, BSc Business Mathematics and Statistics, BSc Statistics with Finance, BSc Econometrics and Mathematical Economics, BSc Economics, BSc Economics and Economic History, BSc Economics with Economic History, BSc Mathematics with Economics, BSc Geography with Economics and BSc Mathematics and Economics. Optional for BSc Accounting and Finance, BSc Management and BSc Philosophy and Economics. Available to General Course students and as an outside option. This course cannot be taken with ST103 Statistical Methods for Social Research or ST107 Quantitative Methods (Statistics).

A-level Mathematics or equivalent. No previous knowledge of statistics is assumed.

The course provides a precise and accurate treatment of introductory probability theory, statistical ideas, methods and techniques. Students will also be exposed to the MINITAB statistical package.

Descriptive statistics including some exploratory data analysis. Probability: axiomatic probability, conditional probability, Bayes' Theorem, independence, combinatorial methods. Random variables: discrete and continuous random variables, expectation and variance, joint and conditional distributions, the moment generating function. Important distributions of statistics, including the Binomial, Poisson, Uniform and Normal distributions.

Sampling distributions of statistics and the Central Limit Theorem. Concepts of statistical inference; Point estimation: method of moments estimation, least squares estimation and maximum likelihood estimation; Interval estimation; Testing statistical hypotheses: one-sample tests and two-sample tests; Inference for correlation coefficients and variances; Rank-based nonparametric tests and goodness-of-fit tests; Contingency tables; Linear regression analysis: model estimation, hypothesis testing, and prediction; Regression and ANOVA with Minitab.

Lectures ST102: 20 MT, 20 LT, 4 ST.

Example Workshops: 9 MT, 10 LT, 4 ST.

Classes ST102.A: 8 MT, 10 LT, 3 ST.

Help Sessions: 8 MT, 10 LT.

Students will be given weekly exercises on which they are to work and then are handed in to class teachers for marking and advice. The exercise material will form the basis of the workshops and classes.

Larsen R. J. and Marx, M. L. (2006) An Introduction to Mathematical Statistics and Its Applications (4th Edition), Prentice Hall (the 3rd Edition is also fine).

Three-hour written examination in the ST.