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 and Bayes theorem. 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 mostly on slides. Lectures will be on methods and practicals (tutorials sessions with excersises on blackboard)

Assessment methods

There will be an exam to evaluate whether the student have learnt the statistical methods inculded in the program of the course, with particular 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 and ability to use these outputs for interpretation of a phenomenon under study.

The exam is written. There will be exercises on the three main parts: descriptive statistics, probability and inference. The results will be made available on almaesami. (The teacher will also indicate a day and time where students can come and see the results to discuss mistakes etc).

 

Teaching tools

Slides and blackboard

Office hours

See the website of Massimo Ventrucci