Welcome to STAT 362

Introduction to Computer Statistical Packages

Fall, 2000

Instructor: James Gentle

If you send email to the instructor, please put "Stat 362" in the subject line.

Although the general schedule of the course will remain essentially as shown below, this web page will evolve as the semester progresses. In particular, links to solutions to assignments and quizzes will be posted at appropriate times (after the fact, of course!).

The statistical topics covered include basic univariate descriptive statistics, methods of inference for univariate statistics, and regression analysis.

SAS software is available on the PCs in several computer labs on campus. It is also available in the GMU computer store for lease.

The text is The Little SAS Book. This book will be used for some assigned readings, but its main use will be as a reference for writing SAS programs.
The online documentation of the SAS system will also be an important resource.
A statistics text book such as used in the statistics prerequisite course may be useful, but is not required.

Texts of parts of some of the lectures, ASCII files of data, and other files will be available online. Students, however, are expected to attend class and are responsible for material covered in class whether or not the material is available online. A student may get notes from other students for material missed whenever it is not possible to attend a class. This is the responsiblity of the student; not of the instructor.

There will be weekly assignments.
Performance on the assignments will constitute 10% of the total grade in the course. The grades on two assignments will be dropped; therefore, no assignments will be accepted late. You are allowed to work with other students and to receive help from any available source on your assignments.

There will be a final exam and three quizzes. The grade on one quiz will be dropped; therefore, no make-up quizzes will be given. Work on the quizzes and exam will be done alone and in accordance with the Honor Code.
Performance on the quizzes will constitute 60% of the total grade in the course.
Performance on the exam will constitute 30% of the total grade in the course.

The final exam is December 19 at 1:30.

An approximate schedule is shown below. As the semester progresses, more details will be provided on the topics to be covered.

• Week 1, Aug 29, 31
  Computer systems and organization; applications software.
  Data organization for statistical analysis.
  Introduction to the SAS software system (reference: The Little SAS Book , Chapter 1 and Section 8.3).
  The SAS DATA step and simple PROCs (PRINT, FREQ, CORR, and CHART, reference: The Little SAS Book , Sections 4.4, 4.11, and 7.4).
  Assignment 1 (due following Tuesday)
  Solution
  

  ---

• Week 2, Sep 5, 7
  More on the DATA step; reading data from ASCII files.
  Basic univariate statistics.
  Review of basic statistics: estimation, hypothesis testing; etc.
  The SAS DATA step and more PROCs (reference: The Little SAS Book , Chapter 2 and Section 4.9).
  Conditional execution (reference: The Little SAS Book , Sections 3.4 and 3.5).
  DROP/KEEP
  Assignment 2 (due following Tuesday)
  Solution
  

  ---

• Week 3, Sep 12, 14
  More on the DATA step. Saving and reusing SAS datasets. (reference: The Little SAS Book , Section 2.9).
  Additional statements in the SAS DATA step:
  Functions, OUTPUT/DELETE, DROP/KEEP, RENAME, LABEL
  Assignment 3 (due following Tuesday)
  Solution
  

  ---

• Week 4, Sep 19, 21
  Combining and manipulating SAS datasets (reference: The Little SAS Book , Chapter 5).
  Sorting, concatenation, interleaving, merging, updating.
  Thursday, September 21, Quiz 1.
  Assignment 4 (due following Tuesday)
  Solution
  

  ---

• Week 5, Sep 26, 28
  Review of Quiz 1
  More on combining and manipulating SAS datasets;
  lagged variables; automatic variables; arrays; DO loops; and labels.
  More on the INPUT statement and controlling output.
  Character data; PUT and FILE statements;
  PROC FORMAT; custom formats; recoding.
  Assignment 5 (due following Tuesday)
  Solution
  

  ---

• Week 6, Oct 3, 5
  Regression analysis; basic model fitting.
  Regression in SAS (reference: The Little SAS Book , Sections 7.5 and 7.6).
  PROC REG statement, MODEL statement, P option.
  Output, BY statement.
  PLOT statement, P. keyword, OVERLAY option.
  Assignment 6 (due following Thursday)
  Solution
  

  ---

• Week 7, Oct 12 (no class Oct 10)
  More on regression analysis:
  Inspection of residuals -- patterns; polynomial regression;
  Confidence intervals; prediction intervals.
  Assignment 7 (due following Tuesday)
  

  ---

• Week 8, Oct 17, 19
  Regression fitting; the AOV table associated with a regression analysis;
  More on regression model building.
  Adequacy of fit: R-squared, adjusted R-squared
  Selection of variables in regression.
  Assignment 8 (due following Tuesday)
  Solution
  

  ---

• Week 9, Oct 24, 26
  Review (combining datasets, regression, etc.).
  Thursday, October 26, Quiz 2.
  Assignment 9 (due following Tuesday)
  Solution
  

  ---

• Week 10, Oct 31, Nov 2
  Review of Quiz 2
  SAS macros
  Assignment 10 (due following Tuesday)
  Solution
  

  ---

• Week 11, Nov 7, 9
  Date data.
  Options in SAS.
  Data informats/formats; PROC CONTENT, PROC DATASETS; Importing and exporting data
  Assignment 11 (due following Tuesday)
  Solution
  

  ---

• Week 12, Nov 14, 16
  More on SAS data manipulation. (reference: The Little SAS Book , Sections 2.14-2.20).
  Statistical graphics.
  PROC CAPABILITY; QQPLOT statement.
  Assignment 12 (due following Tuesday)
  

  ---

• Week 13, Nov 21 (no class Nov 23)
  More on statistical graphics.
  SAS/GRAPH.
  Assignment 13 (due following Tuesday)
  

  ---

• Week 14, Nov 28, 30
  More on SAS/GRAPH.
  Thursday, November 30, Quiz 3.
  Assignment 14 (due following Tuesday)
  

  ---

• Week 15, Dec 5, 7
  Review of Quiz 3
  Other SAS features.
  PROC IML.
  Review.