Economics 371

Introduction to Statistical Analysis

Instructor: Ron Michener

Phone: 924-7113 Office: 2015 Ivy Road, room 321 Email: rwm3n@virginia.edu Office Hours: Wednesday 1:00-3:00, or by

appt. TA: Matthew Goldman His office hours TBA.

Notice

Recitation sections will meet this evening.

Is 371 a hard course?

Let’s ask Dr. Evil!

Yes!

Why is it hard?

You have to spend many hours reading, doing problems, and working on the computer.

But, it is not beyond the ability of ordinary mortals, the way quantum physics is.

Econ 371 or Stat 212?

Don’t expect Econ 371 to be easier than Stat 212. In principle, the courses cover the same material at the same level of difficulty.

However, budget constraints have forced the Stat department to teach large classes, with the consequence that they assign less homework.

Econ 371 therefore has become the more ambitious course of the two.

Primary Text

Statistics for Business and Economics Anderson, Sweeny, and Williams Ninth Edition

Text available in bookstore.

What is Minitab?

Minitab is user-friendly software designed to do statistical calculations, and it will be used extensively in this class and in your homework assignments.

Minitab is available in the ITC computer labs. You can also download it from ITC for use on your

own computer. See the syllabus for details.

Is there a text for Minitab?

The Minitab Handbook (Fifth edition) Ryan, Joiner, and Cryer

Problems will be assigned from this book. A copy has been placed on two-hour reserve

in Clemons.

Why don’t we just use Excel?

Minitab is more powerful – it does some things Excel can’t.

Minitab automates many common statistical procedures. Excel requires a series of commands to do things Minitab does with a click of a mouse.

Minitab and Excel can be used together if you like, by cutting and pasting worksheets from one application into the other.

What about Data?

Are we going to have to type the data into a spreadsheet or is there an easier

way?

Minitab Handbook Problems

Data resides on the server in the ITC labs. In any ITC lab, click on FILE > OPEN

WORKSHEET and you should see the datasets used in the Minitab Handbook problems.

The data should also be there by default in any version downloaded from ITC.

Anderson, Sweeny, and Williams Problems

A data CD comes in the back of the book.

The data sets can be read off the CD.

I recommend you copy them to your home directory.

When data is needed for an assignment, this graphic appears in the margin.

fileCD

Filename

Additional Problems

There are a few additional problems that use computer data sets not included in the book.

The data sets for these problems can be downloaded from the web.

REMEMBER

In a pinch (you left the data disk at home, the data file is corrupted, etc.) it

usually takes only a few minutes to type a data set into a spreadsheet.

Grading

Quizzes, 3 over the semester, 36% Homework done on computer, 20% Comprehensive Final Exam, 44%

Goals of the Class

Learn statistical theory well enough to solve computationally simple problems with only a pocket calculator.

Learn how to use computer software to solve computationally difficult problems.

Learn how to correctly interpret statistical results, whether derived by hand or by use of the computer.

Learn to recognize real world situations where statistics can be applied to gain new insights.

Goals and Grading

Our testing technology makes it straightforward to test your ability to solve problems by hand and interpret the results.

Testing your statistical intuition and computer abilities is harder

Quizzes

Test your ability to solve paper and pencil problems and interpret the results.

After each chapter a selection of paper and pencil problems will be assigned for you to do. These problems will not be collected and graded. However, you should do them to prepare for the quiz.

Why do it this way?

It’s tedious to grade every problem. When I graded homework rather than quizzes, I

rarely distributed homework answers, for fear of giving students with access to old answer keys an unfair advantage. But denying diligent students answer keys made it harder for them to study.

Therefore, I now give the problems and answers to everyone. You do the problems and check your own answers. The quizzes then test your knowledge of the material.

The paper and pencil problems

Some from Anderson, Sweeny, and Williams Some additional (often harder) problems. Short answers to even-numbered ASW questions

are in Appendix D of ASW. A solution manual is available online. Additional problems, plus answers, are on the web. You may need to do more problems than were

assigned to fully understand the material.

Details regarding Quizzes.

You should bring a simple calculator (but not more sophisticated than a TI-30Xa). You can get a basic calculator anywhere for $5 or less.

You will have a formula sheet. You can view and print a copy of the formula sheet from the course home page.

There will be no makeup quizzes. If you have an excused absence, a quiz you miss will not be counted in computing your quiz average. If you have an unexcused absence, the zero counts.

WARNING!

The paper and pencil problems are not collected and graded.

Therefore, they will be easy for you to ignore. BUT, if you ignore them, you will do miserably on

the quizzes. AND miserably on the final. Which together are 80% of your grade.

Computer Assignments

These will be collected and graded. What are the assignments designed to teach?

In part, they are designed to teach you the commands you need to perform common statistical procedures.

Minitab Handbook problems often have a deeper point to make. If it seems that you are using the same commands over and over again in these problems, it is because the problems were assigned with the deeper point in mind, not the commands.

Details regarding Computer Assignments

No late assignments will be accepted. But, I will forgive the first assignment you fail to

hand in. Or, if you hand in all the assignments, I will drop

the one with the lowest percentage grade. You will be required to edit your computer

output to make it easier to read and interpret. (P.S. This is a useful real-world skill.)

What is pledged?

Computer assignments I encourage you to help one another with advice,

and by answering questions. However, you must each do the assignments

individually. You may not share project files.

Quizzes and Exams (naturally).

Features of the Course Homepage

A syllabus A schedule A list of assigned problems Things to download

Additional homework problems & answers Additional readings Data sets used in additional problems Practice questions for exams

Bomb Threats

If a bomb threat closes Claude Maury Nursing Education Building, I will try to locate another classroom.

If I can make alternative arrangements, I will notify you by email.

The URL of this masterpiece?

http://www.people.virginia.edu/~rwm3n/e371.htm

What else is on the agenda today?

How to retrieve problems, answers, and data from the web page.A brief demonstration of Minitab.An demonstration of how to edit Minitab output.

How can we remember all this?

It is on the web page. Most of it is on the syllabus.