Introductory Statistics

What is Statistics?

Statistics is the scientific discipline concerned with data in every aspect. It focuses on the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of this data. This includes the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments. Statistics seeks to explore and understand the relationships in the world around us.

STAT 200 (Introductory Statistics) is the interdisciplinary introductory statistics course offered by Knox College. The ultimate goal of the course is to get you to “think statistically.” This means you fundamentally understand the causes and the effects of

• randomness on your understanding of the world,
• sampling on that randomness, and
• the research question on data acquisition and analysis.

In addition to “thinking statistically,” we check that you can properly collect data, explore them, verify hypotheses using them, and present your research about them in a meaningful manner.

All readings, lectures, activities, and homework assignments support these three fundamental goals. We do this because all scientific disciplines, from biology to economics, from physics to sociology, and from computer science to political science require a structured approach to understanding the processes involved in the discipline, a structured approach to testing theories in the discipline, and a structured approach to presenting research results in the discipline.

We seek to help you master the appropriate skills to succeed in your specific area of interest, whether that is the biochemistry, economics, political science, or even statistics. To make this most efficient, the statistics faculty at Knox College consist of members from across the campus. While we all teach the course objectives, we do it from our own experiences, thus showing that statistics is a true multi-disciplinary area of study.