Math 151 , Fall 2005, Day 42 Wed. Nov. 7 Hit reload.

Check here for any changes or updates. 11am Wed. Nov. 7

Final exam: Wed. Dec. 14, 2-5 pm, in the classroom (Mac321).   Contact me ASAP me if you have a problem with this time.  You can start early, any time after 11:30 Wed.     Alternate time: Tuesday Dec. 13, starting at 9:30 am, finishing by 2.  Sign up today,  or notify me at least 12 hours ahead of time!
The Final will be closed book, but bring one sheet with your notes, anything you like!
   Length 1 1/2 to2 times the length of the midterm exams; comprehensive but with special attention to the material covered since Exam 3, and at least a couple problems very similar to Exam 3.  Reading but not creating SPSS.

Help?   I'll be on campus: this afternoon till 3:45 , and after that, roughly
 Friday 10-2 , Tuesday 9:30-2,  Wednesday 11-5. (I may leave to eat, help other students, etc.--email for an appointment to be sure.)   Changes will appear here .
Fay's sessions: she writes:  Monday, 12 December, 1-3 and  Tuesday, 13 December, 5-7.  She writes:
"I will discuss when to use formulas and trigger words.  Look through the book, start your cheat sheet and the sessions will be more helpful.  I recommend both of the sessions to all so we can cover more material."

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.

Spring textbook: We'll use D&V, 1st ed. (yours) one more semester.  The bookshop will be buying; the class is full so you may be able to sell directly, or lend...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please fill out an evaluation, return it to the ENVELOPE circulating or on the projection cart.  The envelope will be with Erna in the Dean of the Faculty's office, if you miss doing it today.

Day 42:  For final... Review, making your notes for your sheet, list questions and get answers.

Homework questions? Day 41

ON the EXAM?
Computing standard deviation by hand   YES. (4 values, simple computations.)
Doing a two-sample t procedure by hand (chapter 24) NO.
Figuring out SPSS output:  how to read, which output is appropriate (including two-sample)  YES,
      telling which menu commands, NO.

What we studied: (Overall: always questioning the source, context of data)
>>Data Analysis: description and exploration<<
          Normal distributions and "abnormal"--graphs, summary systems (mean/s.d., 5-number group)
          Categorical data, two way tables; marginal and conditional proportions
           Two related Quantitative variables; correlation, regression, how good (r, r-squared, residuals), predicting y from x
>>Data Production: Sampling, Designing Experiments<<
           Sample, Observational study, Experiment
           All the ways it can go wrong (biases, placebo effect, etc.)
 >>Statistical Inference: formal Estimating and Testing--
         quantifying our uncertainty and satisfying the skeptic<<
      Single proportion.  Single mean.  Paired Differences.  Difference of means for two independent samples.
            Confidence intervals  (For shoebox, on overhead)
            Hypothesis tests:  null and alternative, P-value, significance  and alpha

More about alphas, and testing as decision making (will not be on exam).

Anything you'll meet will fall into one of those big categories--
   --Fancy ways of torturing a data set to make it give up its secrets--"data mining," subtle and complex summary methods
   --Sophisticated experimental and sample 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!

What haven't we done?
--Chapter 22, comparing two proportions from independent samples.  Like comparing means, with niggling details in the SE computations.
--Chapter 26, testing whether categorical variables in two-way tables are dependent (the departures from equal proportions in all the columns are too much to attribute to sampling ("natural") variation, given independence) "Chi-Square" (Quantitative Research methods in Sociology)
--Chapter 27, testing if a correlation coefficient is really different from 0, making confidence interval-type fudge factors around our regression line. Chapter 29 on CD, Multiple correlation--relationships when there are more than 2 variables (Econometrics)
--Experiments with more than 2 treatments, and quantitative results ("Analysis of Variance" Ch. 28 on CD--take Quantitative Research Methods in Psychology)
--Methods that work when our normality assumptions aren't met.  ("Nonparametric" methods--"Mann-WhitneyU")
      Example (Optional): Tukey's Quick test (p. 465) for two independent samples. Doesn't need Normal!!
 (Not well known;  but worth knowing!)  Put data in order (back to back Stemplot?).  One group must have the highest value and the other group the lowest to use this.  How much do they not overlap?
Count the number of items in the "Higher" set that are bigger than all the items in the "Lower" set. Plus all the items in the "Lower" set that are smaller than all the items in the "Higher" set. (A tie at the edge = 1/2.)
"7, 10, 13"  7 or more? (2-sided) Sig. at .05.  10 or more? (2-sided)Sig. at .01.  13 or more? (2-sided)Sig. at .001.
Unfortunately, text doesn't seem to have any problems this will work well on.

Thank you for a very interesting semester!


Sievers home  Math151-Fall05/Dayf42.htm  11:15am 12/7/05
This page belongs to Sally Sievers who is solely responsible for its content. Please see our statement of responsibility.