August 29, 2001

Goals

Topics: Descriptive Statistics. Math Review.
You should be able to:

Evaluate arithmetic expressions using the correct order of evaluation
Evaluate mathematical formulas which involve the summation sign
Substitute numbers into formulas and correctly evaluate the resulting
Explain intuitively the concept of a measure of central tendency
Define and calculate the median of a collection of numeric data
Define and calculate the arithmetic mean of a collection of numeric data expressions

September 5, 2001

Goals

Topics: Descriptive Statistics. Math review.
You should be able to:

Explain why both the mean and median are measures of central tendency, and compare and contrast their usefulness
Explain intuitively the concept of a measure of spread
Define and calculate the sample variance and sample standard deviation of a collection of numeric data
Explain why the sample variance is a measure of spread
Define and calculate the interquartile range of a collection of data
Define nominal, ordinal, discrete, and continuous data
Define relative frequency, and give examples of its use
Understand the relation between the sample mean and the relative frequency
Explain intuitively the concept of a sampling distribution
Construct a histogram from a collection of numeric data
Understand what it means for a distribution to be skewed
Construct and read simple x-y plots
Understand a two-by-two cross-classification table

September 12, 2001

Topics: Probability theory. Sample spaces. Independence.
You should be able to:

Understand that probability is defined in terms of limiting relative frequencies
Understand that probabilities are numbers between zero and one
Understand the concept of a sample space
Understand how to compute the probability of the complement of an event, given the probability of the event
Be able to calculate simple probabilities involving equally likely events (such as rolls of a fair die, etc.)
Understand the concept of mutually exclusive events
Understand the addition rule of probability
Understand the concept of independence
Understand the multiplication rule for independent events

Proceed to probability theory notes.

September 19, 2001

Topics: Probability theory. Independence and conditional probability.
You should be able to:

Understand the definition of conditional probability.
Understand the law of total probability
Understand Bayes' Rule
Understand various public health applications of probability theory
Understand sensitivity, specificity, and the predictive value of a positive.

September 26, 2001

Topics: Probability theory. Binomial distribution. Expectation. Population variance. Cumulative distribution function.
You should be able to:

Understand how to compute the number of permutations of K distinguishable objects.
Understand how to compute the number of ways to choose K objects out of N distinguishable objects.
Understand the binomial distribution.
Understand the definition of expectation.
Understand the relation between expectation and sample mean.
Understand that the expectation of the binomial distribution is Np, where N is the number of trials and p is the success probability per trial.
Understand how the binomial is a model of sampling from a large population, or of sampling with replacement.
Understand the concept of population variance.
Understand the concept of cumulative distribution function.

October 3, 2001

Topics: Statistical inference. Estimating a population proportion using the relative frequency. Hypothesis testing in general. Fisher's Exact Test. The Chi-square Test of Homogeneity in a R by C table. The Chi-square test of independence.

October 10, 2001

Topics: Statistical inference. The sample variance again. The standard error of a sample mean. The normal distribution. The Z-test to compare a sample mean to a putative pre-selected population mean. The Z-test for a single proportion.

October 17, 2001

Topics: Statistical inference. The one-sample T-test to compare a sample mean to a constant. The paired-sample T-test.

October 24, 2001

Topics: Statistical inference. Pooled variance estimators. The two-sample T-test. One-way analysis of variance (beginning).

October 31, 2001

Topics: Statistical inference. One-way analysis of variance. The within-mean-square. The between-mean-square. The F-test.

November 7, 2001

Topics: Statistical inference. Linear regression. The regression mean square. The residual mean square. The T-test for the regression coefficient. The F-test of regression.

November 14, 2001

Topics: Statistical inference. Correlation. Testing whether the correlation coefficient is zero. Relation to linear regression. The squared multiple correlation coefficient.