Statistics in Society

Course Coordinator: Dr Shirley Xueli Chen, BSc (SYSU), PhD (CityU)

Course Developer: Dr Wong Kai Choi

STAT S242 replaces the previous course MATH S242.This course is intended for students who are interested in the application of statistics in decision-making, engaging in exploratory data analysis, surveys, and basic statistical inference. The course will be delivered using a custom textbook approach and supported with supplementary lectures. The teaching is enhanced by the use of the Microsoft Excel based on an add-in statistical software package called XLSTAT. The XLSTAT software and relevant data sets will be included with the custom textbook.

This course forms part of the degree programmes in Statistics and Decision Science, Environmental Studies, Economics, and in Social Sciences, or a free-choice credits to be taken by students of other programmes.

There are no recommended prerequisites for the course.

Professional Exemption
STAT S242 has been exempted by Hong Kong Statistics Society (HKSS). Students may be granted the Ordinary Certificate in Statistics if they complete STAT S242 plus MATH S282 with grade C+ or above. For details of exemption, please refer to http://math.ouhk.edu.hk

Aims
This course aims to:

• Introduce the general concepts of data production, data analysis and statistical inference to draw conclusions about the important parameters of the underlying population;
• Provide a simple, yet critical, introduction to exploratory data analysis and statistical reasoning;
• Introduce a wide diversity of applications of statistics in everyday-life problems;
• Explore the use of computing technology to perform statistical data analysis.

Contents
The course covers the following topics:

• Data analysis and descriptive statistics with the use of Microsoft Excel
• Price index, household income and gender earnings
• Measuring chance and probability
• Sample distribution and confidence intervals in the context of social perception testing
• Hypothesis tests for one population mean
• Hypothesis tests for two population means
• Categorical data analysis, contingency tables and X2 test
• Relationships and regression analysis and the calculation of correlation coefficient
• Methods of surveys and questionnaires through cases studies

Learning support
There will be eleven supplementary lectures and eleven tutorials throughout the course.

Assessment
There are four assignments, one computer-marked assignment and a final examination. Students are required to submit assignments via the Online Learning Environment (OLE).

Online requirement
This course is supported by the Online Learning Environment (OLE). Use of the OLE is compulsory for the submission of the computer-marked assignments. You can find the latest course information from the OLE. Through the OLE, you can communicate electronically with your tutor and the Course Coordinator as well as other students. To access the OLE, students will need to have access to the Internet. The use of the OLE is required for the study of this course.

Equipment
The course contains Excel activities. You will need access to a computer system capable of running the Microsoft Excel software. A computer system suitable for connecting to the Internet is also required for accessing the OLE. The system must meet the following minimum requirements:

• Personal computer with Pentium III 800 MHz processor
• 512 MB of RAM
• 1 GHz of free hard disk space
• English Windows XP or better
• Web browser: Internet Explorer 6, or compatible equivalents

A calculator with basic statistical functions will also be required.

Software
The Excel add-on software XLSTAT and a batch of dataset will be provided to students as part of the course material.

Set book(s)
There are no set books for this course.

Students with disabilities or special educational needs
If you have difficulty with manual operations, the computing activities may cause difficulties. You are encouraged to seek advice from the Course Coordinator before enrolling on the course.