STATISTICS

This course is part of the “core educational activities” of the master degree program in “Economics and Governance of Public Organizations”. It is a is compulsory course.
The course aims to present the statistical methods that are often applied to the analysis of social phenomena and public policies evaluation.

Knowledge and understanding: understand the most important statisical methods.
Ability to apply knowledge and understanding: analyze data for supporting decision making activities; apply predictive and interpretative models.

In this course, we will assume knowledge of some basic concepts and techniques of descriptive statistics and the calculus of probability, as illustrated in any textbook of Statistics at undergraduate level. In detail, the following will be taken for known
- basic definitions (population, sample, statistics, parameters, descriptive statistics and inferential statistics)
- elements of descriptive statistics (statistical variables and their typology, frequency distributions, location and variability indices, percentiles)
- basic concepts of probability (probability, probability distribution, normal or Gaussian probability law)
As an example, you can refer to chapters 1-4 of the textbook (Agresti) below.
Students who feel they have gaps in these topics are invited to take the JUMP START course (JS0001, at least for Statistics and Probability content.
Information on the JUMP START course can be found at: https://www.unive.it/web/it/15496/jump-start-courses

1. Probability distributions
2. Inferential statistics: point and interval estimation
3: Inferential statistics: hypothesis testing
4. Tests for group comparison
5. The analysis of association between categorical variables
6. Linear regression and correlation

Agresti A., Metodi statistici di base e avanzati per le scienze sociali, Pearson, 2012, ch. 4-9.
Additional materials are available in the course moodle page.

The final assessment consists in a oral exam. The exam aim at assessing the knowledge of the basic concepts and tools included in the programme and at assessing students’ ability of applying those concepts and tools to simple problems in the fields of economics and social sciences.

oral

The assignment of the grade is based on the evaluation of the following elements, demonstrated by the student in the oral test:
a) understanding of the fundamental concepts of the discipline;
b) argumentative skills;
c) ability to apply the methods presented during the course to real problems.

Grades will be awarded according to the following grading scheme:
- barely sufficient, with several gaps: grades 18-20;
- fully sufficient: grades 21-23;
- good: grades 24-27;
- very good: grades 28-30;
- excellent: grades 30 cum laude.

The course is taught through presentation style lectures, integrated by the individual student activities. Students are supported by the indicated textbooks and by the resources made available on Moodle platform (slides, exercises, quiz).