Module Information

Module Identifier
MA26510
Module Title
Statistical Methods
Academic Year
2014/2015
Co-ordinator
Dr John Alexander Lane
Semester
Semester 1
Mutually Exclusive
MX36510
Pre-Requisite
MA11310 or MT11310
Other Staff
 

Course Delivery

Delivery Type Delivery length / details
Lecture 11 Hours. (11 x 1 hour lectures)
Practical 22 Hours. (11 x 2 hour practical classes)
 

Assessment

Assessment Type Assessment length / details Proportion
Semester Assessment Coursework  40%
Semester Exam 3 Hours   Open-book examination  60%
Supplementary Exam 3 Hours   open-book, open-note practical exam  100%

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this module, a student should be able to:
1. summarise effectively a set of data;
2. identify the statistical techniques appropriate to analysing a given situation;
3. carry out standard statistical procedures for one and two samples;
4. state and check the assumptions required by their analyses;
5. draw conclusions from an analysis of data and write reports concerning these conclusions.

Brief description

There is an increasing demand in the workplace for personnel skilled in the analysis and interpretation of data. This module covers the basic skills of a practising statistician and includes also the preparation of reports.

Aims

This module will give students a thorough grounding in the methods used by a practising statistician.

Content

  1. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS: Interpretation of data presented in numerical and graphical forms. Correlation and fitting straight lines. Report writing.
  2. DISTRIBUTIONS: Binomial, Poisson, Normal etc. Parameter estimation including maximum likelihood. Graphical assessment of goodness of fit; Q-Q plots.
  3. BASIC IDEAS: Estimates and standard errors of means, proportions, sums and differences. Fitting straight lines, correlation.
  4. CONFIDENCE STATEMENTS: Construction and interpretation of confidence intervals for means, rates and proportions. Bootstrap confidence intervals. Confidence limits for the difference between parameters.
  5. HYPOTHESIS TESTING: Hypothesis tests; interpretation of p-values. Paired and unpaired two sample t-tests. Bootstrap p-values.
  6. GOODNESS-OF-FIT: Chi-squared test.

Reading List

General Text
Fleming, M. C. (c.2000.) Principles of applied statistics :an integrated approach using MINITAB and Excel /Michael C. Fleming and Joseph G. Nellis. 2nd ed. Thomson Learning Primo search Supplementary Text
D D Wackerley, W Mendenhall & R L Scheaffer (2002) Mathematical Statistics with Applications 6th Duxbury. Primo search F Daly, D J Hand, M C Jones, A D Lunn & K J McConway (1995) Elements of Statistics Addison Wesley Primo search

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 5