00914 - Statistics

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course the students know fundamental concepts of statistics useful for the investigation of complex phenomena related to turism. In particular, students - are able to apply descriptive tools for data analysis; - are aware of the basic concepts of probability; - know the fundamental of statistical inference, hence can compute relevant summaries from the data and quantify the associated uncertainty. Pre-knowledge of mathematics is required. 

Course contents

part 1)

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS: basics of statistics and sampling; empirical distributions and their graphical representation; relevant summaries of a distribution; tools to examine association between two variables; linear regression

part 2)

PROBABILITY:

Random events and sample space. Axioms of probability. Conditional probability. Density and probability fuctions of a random variable; expectaed value and variance of a random variable. Bernoulli and Binomial distributions. Normal and Normal Standard distribution. Central limit theorem.

STATISTICAL INFERENCE: sample variability of an estimator; the sample mean estimator and its properties, point estimation and confidence intervals; statistical tests; basics on inference in regression models.

 

Readings/Bibliography

S. Borra e A. Di Ciaccio (2014) Statistica. Metodologie per le Scienze Economiche e Sociali (III ed.), McGraw-Hill.

Teaching methods

Frontal lectures based on slides and notes at the board. Lectures will be on methods and practicals (tutorials sessions with excersises on blackboard)

Assessment methods

There will be an exam with focus on:

- students' understanding of the basic statistics to produce empirical summaries and investigate relationships between two or more variables;

- students' understanding of the output of a statistical analysis.

The exam consists of a quiz on EOL/Zoom with questions focusing on three main topics: descriptive statistics, probability and inference.

Some days after the exam students will find grades published on almaesami webpage. The teacher will indicate a date when students can come and watch their exam, the mistakes done etc ('watch the exam day'). The teacher will verbalize each grade at the end of the 'watch the exam day'. Therefore, if someone wants to reject the exam grade he/she must send an email to the teacher before the 'watch the exam day'.

Students undertaking the exam are required to register first, following the procedure in almaesami webpage. During the exam, students are allowed to use their personal notes and a calculator; it is important to come to the exam with a copy of the table of the standard Normal cumulative distribution and the table of the T-student (both can be found in the textbook).

 

Teaching tools

Slides and blackboard (or an ipad for notes taking).

Office hours

See the website of Massimo Ventrucci