Basics of Inferential Statistics for Political Scientists - Janez Stare

This is a refresher course in basic concepts of inferential statistics. Although mathematics will be minimized, at least one course in college level algebra is assumed. Understanding of the notion of the integral would help, but is not necessary. Course outline: 1. Basic notions of probability: events, random variables, probability distribution, cumulative distribution function. 2. Some standard distributions: binomial, Poisson, normal, t. 3. Expected value and variance. 4. Sampling distributions of the mean, variance, and the difference of two means. 5. Point estimation, standard errors, confidence intervals. 6. Hypotheses testing, Type I and Type II errors. 7. Some basic tests: one sample and two sample t-tests, analysis of proportions, test of association between two categorical variables, introduction to bivariate linear regression. The course will consist of 10.5 hours of lectures, and 7.5 hours of practical work. SPSS will be used, but no experience with the program is assumed. Short Bio Janez Stare graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics, University of Ljubljana, then held a Master Degree and Ph.D. in Biostatistics from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana. He is currently full Professor of Biostatistics at the Faculty of Medicine, Ljubljana, and Head of the Institute of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, Faculty of Medicine, Ljubljana. His research interests are, or were, explained variation in survival analysis, linear models in survival analysis, predictive ability of regression models in survival analysis, frailties, random effects in survival models, relative survival.

---