M 358K Assignment for Friday, February 10:

• Note that in the first paragraph, Dr. Wright seems to make a distinction between "census" and "sample." The distinction will be explained on p. 195.
• In doing your term project, you may have to deal with some of the practical issues Dr. Wright mentions in the third paragraph.

• The distinction between sample and population (p. 195) is important in understanding statistics.
• The distinction between observational study and experiment is also important. (Recall the handout from the first class day: we discussed three meanings of the word "experiment." The third one was the statistics meaning given here.)

• Can you see a connection between the use of the word "bias" on p. 201 and the conecpts of biased and unbiased estimators that we have discussed in class?
• The reason for randomizing given on p. 201 is important, but we will later see that there is a additional important reason for randominzing.
• In your term project, you will need to choose a simple random sample (if you do an observational study) or randomize (if you do a comparative experiment). 
• The concept of statistical significance is very important. We will return to it and make it more precise, but it is definitely helpful to remember the informal definition given on p. 203. Be sure not to confuse statistical significance with practical significance (whether or not a result makes a practical difference). We will discuss this distinction more later.
• You will need to heed the cautions about experimentation (pp. 206 - 207) if you choose to do an experiment for your term project.
• Be sure to note the distinction between completely randomized and matched pairs designs (p. 207). This distinction will be important later, because the two types of design require differen types of statistical analysis.
• Block designs (p. 208) will require a more advanced type of analysis than we will cover in this course, so will not be suitable for your term project.