ECON 3818 Introduction to Statistics with Computer Applications
Instructor Contact:
Email: sara.avila@colorado.edu
About the Course:
This course introduces you to the principles of statistical reasoning and inference. To this end, the course’s ultimate goals are for you to thoroughly understand the following concepts: sampling distributions, hypothesis testing, and confidence intervals across multiple settings.
The course has four parts organized into fourteen modules. The first part of the course provides an overview of how data is properly collected and how to explore data using visual and numerical methods. The second part is an introduction to probability theory, discrete and continuous probability distributions and mathematical expectation. The third part introduces sampling distributions, confidence intervals and hypothesis testing. Finally, the last section applies statistical inference to population means, to proportions and to simple regressions.
This foundational course is essential to your success in the study of economics. CU economics 4000-level courses require knowledge of basic statistical reasoning and understanding. Further, our econometric courses build directly off this course.
Course Prerequisites: Requires prerequisite courses of ECON 2010 (Principles of Microeconomics) (minimum grade C-) AND either ECON 1088 or MATH 1081 or MATH 1300, MATH 1310, or APPM 1350 (minimum grade C-). It is restricted to students with 22-180 units completed.
Proctoring: This course requires proctored examinations. Exams are proctored which will require planning on your part. Proctors are individuals who administer the exam process following the guidelines provided by University of Colorado Boulder to ensure academic integrity. Some proctoring options require the student to pay a fee.
Objectives:
By the end of the course you should be able to:
- Describe data with graphs and statistical tools.
- Identify probability distributions.
- Conduct hypothesis testing.
- Conduct statistical inference.
- Identify which test to use in which case.
- Run and interpret a simple linear regression.
Required Texts:
Moore, D., Motz, W. and Fligner, M., The Basic Practice of Statistics, 9th edition with Achieve. Macmillan ISBN: 9781319344634. Students are required to have access to Achieve (which includes an eBook) at a minimum. Achieve is where you will read your textbook and complete some graded assignments.
Grading (out of 1000 points):
| Assignment | Points per Assignment | Frequency | GRADE POINTS | GRADE PERCENTAGE |
| Problem Sets* | 20 | 10 | 200 | 20% |
| Quizzes* | 20 | 10 | 200 | 20% |
| R Exercises* | 20 | 7 | 140 | 14% |
| Discussions | 20 | 4 | 80 | 8% |
| Proctored Midterm Exam | 150 | 1 | 150 | 15% |
| Proctored Cumulative Final Exam | 230 | 1 | 230 | 23% |
| TOTAL | 1000 | 100% |