Math 151 , Spring 2004, Friday Day 42, May 14 Hit reload...Monday Morning

See this page for changes, updates in red.

Final exam  Tuesday, May 18, 9 a.m.  Optional later time:  Thurs. May 20 any period of time after 9:15, finishing by 4:30, by signup--attendance clipboard, or email after today..  Notify me ASAP if neither of these work for you! The exam will be closed book, but one sheet of your notes.  Length 1 1/2 to 2 times the length of the midterm exams; comprehensive but with special attention to the material covered since Exam 3.  Reading but not creating SPSS.  Please contact me ASAP if you have a problem/conflict.
Exam is closed book and notes, except bring One sheet of notes (both sides if you want) with anything you want on it.
I'll provide tables. Get handout of info, and review problems.

Help times:  Me, Monday 10-12 (come to my office), Faherty Mon. Afternoon 2:30-4:30
Me, Tuesday morning (if taking later).  Amanda 3-7 Wednesday
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Textbook:  Moore, 2nd ed., (yours) WILL be used next semester (one more time.)

Homework: you may hand in late homework up to the time you begin  the exam.  After now, to me directly,  or under my door. (Will get registered in but not carefully read.) NO CAMPUS MAIL!  Returned HW will be in usual yellow folder outside my door.
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Please fill out an evaluation, return it to the ENVELOPE circulating or on the projection cart.

Two sample:  We use Equal variances not assumed method;
Older method:  "Equal variances assumed"--the "pooled two-sample t-procedure ." (See  Moore p.406.) a different formula for SEdiff , different df.  If n1= n2, the two SEdiff  formulas give the same answer.  But the df's are still different).  Safer to use "Equal variances NOT assumed" as a rule.  More...
 "Pooled two-sample t-procedure " == "Equal variances assumed" was the only choice in many circumstances before the above good  approximations were developed, computing power increased, and robustness was explored.
Big problem: How do we know that we have equal variances?  We don't.  The usual test for equal variances has these problems:  (Read Moore pp. 413-14)
1) the Null hypothesis is that the variances are equal, and we gather evidence only against a null hypothesis.  So we don't have a way of assessing evidence for equal variances (the null hypothesis).  Best we can say is we don't have strong evidence against.
2) the usual test on variances is highly NONRobust (highly sensitive) to departures from normality in the populations.
So don't bother.

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Robustness of two-sample t-procedures: p. 401: very good when distributions have similar shapes (even if not normal.)
  Equal sample sizes improve robustness against non-normality (so that's one reason why we design that way.)
Questions on HW, others:???

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ON the EXAM?
Computing standard deviation by hand (like #7.7, p. 374, like pp. 38-9).  YES. (4 values, simple computations.)
Doing a two-sample t procedure by hand
        (like p. 401, 7.34 beetles in oats (test),  p. 412, 7.49 voice onset time (test and CI) NO
Figuring out SPSS output:  how to read, which output is appropriate (including two-sample)  YES,
      telling which menu commands, NO.

What we studied:
[Data Analysis: description and exploration]
   [Data Production: Sampling, Designing Experiments]
        [Statistical Inference: formal Estimating and Testing--
         quantifying our uncertainty and satisfying the skeptic]

Anything you'll meet will fall into one of those categories--
   Fancy ways of torturing a data set to make it give up its secrets--"data mining," subtle and complex summary methods
   Sophisticated experimental designs
   Estimations (usually intervals) , tests (P-values, "significant at") based on other parameters

 "If your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."  Studies are often set up so that they can be analyzed using certain techniques.
  Conversely--if you want to do statistical inference, you'd better know what statistical processes you want to use, and design your study so those processes are appropriate.  Don't expect to just gather data and then figure out how to do statistics on it (not that this isn't done--all too often!)  If you've got nails, you need a hammer, if you have screws, you need a screwdriver.  It's not too hard to create data sets for which good inferential techniques don't exist!

More time?  Look at these problems, with a neighbor.  Decide what to do.  (These are a good addition to review problems)
p. 424, # 7.68
p. 424, # 7.69, part b.
p. 426, middle--problems 74, 75, 76.

The end!  Thank you for the pleasure of being your teacher.
Good luck!



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