Università Roma Tre

An introduction to the fundamental ideas of statistics. Topics include descriptive statistics, probability, confidence intervals, and testing hypotheses, as well as the basics of Chi-square tests, regression and correlation.

1) L. PIERACCINI, A. NACCARATO. LEZIONI DI STATISTICA DESCRITTIVA, GIAPPICHELLI, 2003.
2) L. PIERACCINI. FONDAMENTI DI INFERENZA STATISTICA. II EDIZ. GIAPPICHELLI, 2007.

OR ONE AMONG:
- S.M. ROSS. INTRODUZIONE ALLA STATISTICA, APOGEO, 2008.
- D. PICCOLO. STATISTICA PER LE DECISIONI, IL MULINO, BOLOGNA, EDIZIONE 2010.
- D.S. MOORE. STATISTICA DI BASE, APOGEO, 2005.

This graduate level course covers the following topics:
An overview of statistics
Data description: scales of measurement, how to describe data graphically for categorical data (pie chart, bar chart) and graphs for quantitative variables (histogram, pie chart)
How to describe data by summary statistics: measures of central tendency, variability and skewness.
How to create a box plot
How probability and probability distributions are involved in statistics
How binomial distributions are involved in statistics
The role that normal distributions play in statistics
Simple random sampling and sampling distribution of sample mean, central limit theorem, normal approximation to the binomial
Differentiation between a population and a sample, how to use a statistic to estimate a population parameter, confidence interval and its interpretation, inferences of population mean and proportion
Confidence interval for population mean, Sample size needed for estimating the population mean with a specified confidence level and specified width of the interval
Hypothesis testing: in terms of how to set up Null and Alternative hypotheses, understanding Type I and Type II errors, performing a statistical test for the population mean
p-value, how to compute it and how to use it
Inferences about μ with σ unknown: the t-distribution and the assumptions required to check in order to use it
How to compare the mean of two populations for independent samples: using pooled variances t-test versus separate variances t-test
How to compare the mean of two populations for paired data
How to compare two population proportions
Using contingency table and the Chi-square test of independence
Understanding concepts related to linear regression models including, least squares method, correlation, inferences about the parameters in the linear regression model

The course the course is taught in Italian so textbooks are in Italian:
- G. Cicchitelli, Statsitica: Principi e Metodi, Pearson Education, 3/Eds
- Sebastiani M. R. (2015) “Esercitazioni di statistica”. Esculapio Editore, 3° edizione.
For English speaking students a textbook is:
Introductory Statistics for Business and Economics by Thomas H. Wonnacott and Ronald J. Wonnacott
John Wiley & Sons Inc; International 2 Revised ed
Notes and handout (in Italian) are available at the web page of the course.