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Foundations of Statistics

Unit code: SLCR102

Credit points12.5 Credit Points
Duration
1 Teaching Period
Contact hoursRecommended 8 hours of study per week
CampusOnline
PrerequisitesNil
CorequisitesNil

Related course(s)

This unit if offered as part of Swinburne Online programs.

Aims and objectives

The aim of Foundations of Statistics is to develop the capacity to carry out independent statistical investigation, together with an awareness of the assumptions and limitations involved with the generalisation of the results of such investigations. Students are expected to summarise data, identify research questions, determine and identify appropriate research designs, analyse the data using the statistical package SPSS for Windows and interpret the results in a report writing format.

Teaching methods

This unit is delivered fully online based around a model of participatory online learning.

Assessment

Workbooks 15-25%
Tests 15-25%
Examination 50-65%

Generic skills outcomes

Learners bring a diverse wealth of experiences and graduate with individual understandings, abilities and attitudes. Within this context it is the intent of this unit that students will begin to develop the following key generic skills:
• analysis skills, problem solving skills, communications skills
• ability to tackle unfamiliar problems
• ability to work independently

Content

• Critical thinking in statistics
• Reporting information about a single variable
• The theory behind significance testing
• Research design
• Inferential Statistics – reporting on the relationship between pairs of variables (t-tests, Pearson’s correlation and the chi-square statistic)

References

Francis, G. (2007), Introduction to SPSS for Windows, 5th edn., Pearson Education Australia, Frenchs Forest.

Moore, D. (2000), The basic practice of statistics, 2nd edn, Freeman, New York.

Peck, R., Olsen, C., Devore, J. (2005), Introduction to statistics and data analysis, 2nd edn, Thomson Brooks/Cole, Belmont.

Utts, J. (2005), Seeing through statistics, 3rd edn, Thomson Brooks/Cole, California.
 
Francis, G. & Garing A. ‘Foundations of Statistics’, 2nd Edition, 2013. Pearson Education, French’s Forest