IPS - Day 62

Today was devoted to reviewing topics students wanted to focus on prior to the final exam tomorrow. I asked students to take a few minutes to think about questions they had for different topics.

The consensus of the class was to go over expected value, bootstrapping, conditional probability, null and alternative hypotheses, and the 5-number summary and IQR.

The structure of the final exam is scenario-based. Basically, students are to pick one of three scenarios and analyze the situation. This includes developing hypotheses; explaining an appropriate data collection technique; demonstrating they know how to generate random data sets using simulations, bootstrapping, or resampling redistribution; analyzing a data set; and drawing a conclusion.

Conditional probability relates to the idea that we calculate probabilities under the assumption that the null hypothesis is true; therefore the probabilities we calculate are conditional probabilities. As for expected value, this could be a technique used in the analysis but there are other ways to analyze data as well.

The class just wanted confirmation of their thinking about null and alternative hypotheses. Basically that the null hypothesis is what we are hoping to prove incorrect and the alternative is what we want to show is true. We talked through a few examples and the class seemed comfortable with this topic.

We walked through a brief example for the 5-number summary. I asked students how much change they had in their pockets and created a small data set of nine items. We went through the components of a 5-number summary and how to calculate each piece. We also calculated the IQR. From this we constructed a box plot and reviewed how to determine if any data were outliers.

Next, I used this data set to demonstrate bootstrapping, constructing two different bootstrap samples manually. I was able to use one of the samples to construct a box plot that contained an outlier.

The exam is open note, so I gave students the last few minutes of class to organize their notes and get ready for the exam. Unfortunately, not enough students took advantage of this time. We'll see how well they perform on the exam tomorrow.

Visit the class summary for a student's perspective and to view the lesson slides.