Inferential Statistics

Overview

This course covers commonly used statistical inference methods for numerical and categorical data. You will learn how to set up and perform hypothesis tests, interpret p-values, and report the results of your analysis in a way that is interpretable for clients or the public. Using numerous data examples, you will learn to report estimates of quantities in a way that expresses the uncertainty of the quantity of interest. You will be guided through installing and using R and RStudio (free statistical software), and will use this software for lab exercises and a final project. The course introduces practical tools for performing data analysis and explores the fundamental concepts necessary to interpret and report results for both categorical and numerical data

Syllabus

About the Specialization and the Course

This short module introduces basics about Coursera specializations and courses in general, this specialization: Statistics with R, and this course: Inferential Statistics. Please take several minutes to browse them through. Thanks for joining us in this course!

Central Limit Theorem and Confidence Interval

Welcome to Inferential Statistics! In this course we will discuss Foundations for Inference. Check out the learning objectives, start watching the videos, and finally work on the quiz and the labs of this week. In addition to videos that introduce new concepts, you will also see a few videos that walk you through application examples related to the week's topics. In the first week we will introduce Central Limit Theorem (CLT) and confidence interval.

Inference and Significance

Welcome to Week Two! This week we will discuss formal hypothesis testing and relate testing procedures back to estimation via confidence intervals. These topics will be introduced within the context of working with a population mean, however we will also give you a brief peek at what's to come in the next two weeks by discussing how the methods we're learning can be extended to other estimators. We will also discuss crucial considerations like decision errors and statistical vs. practical significance. The labs for this week will illustrate concepts of sampling distributions and confidence levels.

Inference for Comparing Means

Welcome to Week Three of the course! This week we will introduce the t-distribution and comparing means as well as a simulation based method for creating a confidence interval: bootstrapping. If you have questions or discussions, please use this week's forum to ask/discuss with peers.

Inference for Proportions

Welcome to Week Four of our course! In this unit, we’ll discuss inference for categorical data. We use methods introduced this week to answer questions like “What proportion of the American public approves of the job of the Supreme Court is doing?” Also in this week you will use the data set provided to complete and report on a data analysis question. Please read the project instructions to complete this self-assessment.