This course equips students with basic concepts of elementary probability and statistics and their application. The primary focus is probability and its relationship with statistics. The follow-in course MAT212 Mathematical Statistics focuses entirely upon statistics.

Contents:

  • Statistics: Descriptive and inferential statistics, data representation and graphing, measures of central tendency and variability, univariate and bivariate data
  • Probability: Definition, laws of probability, discrete and continuous probability, conditional probability, independent events, mutually exclusive events
  • Probability Distributions: Distributions and densities, Binomial distribution, Poisson distribution, Normal distribution, Law of Large Numbers and Central Limit Theorem, expected value, variance, generating functions, Markov Chains and random walks
  • Sampling: Definition, Sampling distribution of the mean and proportions, confidence intervals, Hypothesis testing, t-distribution
  • Regression and Correlation: Meaning and use of regression and correlation, linear regression, correlation coefficient

Delivery: 30 lectures, 15 tutorials

Assessment: Course Work: 50% Final Exam: 50%.

Textbook:

Grinstead, Charles M. and J. Laurie Snell, Introduction to Probability (2nd Ed.), American Mathematical Society, The CHANCE Project, 2006. (Electronic version available at http://www.aimath.org/textbooks/grinstead-snell.html)

References:

 

Meery, Brenda, Basic Probability and Statistics- A Short Course, CK-12 Foundation, www.ck12.org, 2011.

Web Resources:

Probability and Statistics topic page on this site.

Lane, David M. et al, Introduction to Statistics (Online Edition), Rice University and University of Houston, http://onlinestatbook.com/2/index.html, 2013.

Lane, David M., HyperStat Online Statistics Textbook, http://davidmlane.com/hyperstat/, 1993-2013.

StatSoft, Inc., Electronic Statistics Textbook, Tulsa, OK: StatSoft, http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/, 2013.

Online Statistics Education: An Interactive Multimedia Course of Study developed by Rice University, University of Houston Clear Lake, and Tufts University, http://onlinestatbook.com/2/index.html, 2013.