STAC32

Applications of Statistical Methods

Ken Butler

bad picture of me in my old office

Welcome to the home page for STAC32. This is the place to look for all things course-related (notes, assignments, announcements etc., linked above) except for assignment hand-ins and marks, which will be on Quercus.

This is an applied course. Expect to be describing the process by which you got your answers, and explaining what the answers mean in the context of the data you are working with: that is to say, using your language skills as well as your statistical skills. Be prepared to show your understanding and insight; this course is about a lot more than “getting the answer”.

In real life, people do Statistics to make decisions or inform actions, and you will be expected to play your full part in that process, both in this course and in your statistical future.

News (most recent at the top):

  • 2026-09-24 13:20 edited 15:30: Questions for worksheet 3 are on the worksheets page. These were written anticipating that these and similar things would be working: filter_out, when_any and the recode_values and replace_values that we saw today. It looks as if I will be writing something for you with workarounds for these, depending on how quickly the r.datatools people get around to updating R and packages. (You’ll need either these functions or workarounds for them for assignment 2, which opens next week.) In the meanwhile, this writeup describes the new functions and how they replace the old ones, which you might find helpful in thinking about workarounds. I’m using this to guide my writeup for you.

  • 2026-09-23 22:00: Worksheet 2 solutions are on the worksheets page, and Assignment 1 is open, due on Monday night. Worksheet 3 should go up after the Thursday lecture; some of it you may need to wait until Tuesday to make sense of.

  • 2026-09-22 14:05 updated 14:30 and 16:05:

    • if you are using r.datatools, it has an old version of tidyverse, and you probably don’t have filter_out, when_any, and when_all. I thought I had a workaround for this, but I’m not so sure (after student experiences today) that I do after all. Investigating.
    • Update: I don’t think I can solve this one, so have filed a ticket requesting the most recent version of R and packages at the other end. Will keep you posted. (R on your own machine will work, if you want to investigate that.)
    • Updated update: I got a response “We’re working on it and I’ll get back to you with updates soon.” We’ll see how soon “soon” is.

  • 2026-09-21 12:00: Our midterm will be on November 6. See Quercus announcement for time and place. According to course policy, there is no makeup midterm. If you have something else at the same time, it is up to you whether you (i) make arrangements to not be at the other thing, or (ii) transfer the weight of this midterm to the final exam (not recommended if you can avoid it).

  • 2026-09-18 11:30: progress report:

    • We have a bit more of numerical summaries to finish next week.
    • After that comes choosing things from dataframes, and then recoding, replacing, and looking up.
    • After that (that is, about Sep 29) we will get into statistical inference with one-sample and two-sample \(t\)-tests. If your understanding of these ideas is a bit rusty, now would be a good time to go back to your notes from your first course and review them.
    • Worksheet 2, for the September 23 tutorial, is on the worksheets page. Solutions to this will be posted on Wednesday evening on the same page. If you are having trouble with using R, or with the ideas in the worksheets, the tutorial is the place to get help.
    • After tutorials are done on Wednesday, Assignment 1 will open, and will be due on Monday night (at the usual 11:59pm). There are no extensions to this due date, and a late penalty applies. (You’ll remember from the course outline that the worst two assignments are dropped.) The only exception is if you have a verified accommodation with Accessability that includes extensions on assignments, and then the maximum extension is two days. If this applies to you, you need to claim your extension before the original due date.
    • After the assignment closes (Wednesday 30th), I will post my detailed solutions.
    • Looking even further ahead, the midterm will be outside of class time, scheduled by the Registrar’s office. I will share the date as soon as it is confirmed.

  • 2026-09-17 16:25: I took a look at the “assignment 0” that have been submitted:

    • I was mainly looking to see whether you have submitted the right kind of thing with at least one graph in it, and if you have done that, you should have 1 point.
    • I was not especially picky about what you submitted for this one, but if I really didn’t like something, you’ll have a comment as well.
    • Depending on whether I have set up the late penalty right, you might have less than 1 if you submitted after midnight Wed, but any non-zero score means you did the work right.
    • If you got 0, read the comment to see what happened, and feel free to try again (you have unlimited attempts, and “assignment 0” will stay open). I will check in again in a few days.
    • If you didn’t attempt “assignment 0” at all, my sympathy for you if you have trouble submitting the first real assignment will be limited.

  • 2026-09-17 11:00: if you want to make an early start, worksheet 2 is up on the worksheets page. Most of this should be doable after Tuesday’s lecture, and the rest of it will be after today’s.

    • Note that this, and future worksheets, don’t come with answers. This is because your learning comes from figuring out what to do and how to do it in order to answer the questions. Next week after tutorial, I will post my (very detailed) solutions, and you’ll be able to see how you did. This will help you prepare for the assignment that follows the worksheet: assignments will open Wednesday night after tutorial and will be due on the following Monday night.

  • 2026-09-14 12:00 edited 12:30:

    • Reminder that tutorials start this week (on Wednesday). One of the tutorials (#3, the one at 12 noon) has changed room. You should have email if this affects you; the room change will be on your Acorn. I don’t think the new room has as many plugins as the IA rooms, so make sure your laptop has some battery left.
    • Some reading for you (not about Statistics): Your edge is patience, not genius.

  • 2026-09-13 14:00: Normally I would put up a Monday update for the week to come, but I seem to be doing it on Sunday this week (edited on Monday to include links):

    • You may have found Thursday’s lecture a lot to take in. The story is “don’t panic”: the big picture is that there are data files of different kinds that you need to be able to read in, which could be either in files on your computer or on the web, and whatever comes your way, you need to be able to identify the kind of thing you are faced with, and find in your notes the instructions for dealing with it.
    • Tuesday’s lecture may be similar, in that we meet code for a lot of different graphs. This may be easier in that you have seen most of these graphs before and you know when to use which one; the new part is going to be finding the code that makes the graph you want. If you get confused during lecture, you may like to practice working through the lecture code by yourself afterwards (so that you are not rushed), thinking about “what am I doing?” and “why am I doing it?”.
    • Lectures for the upcoming week:
    • Tutorials start on Wednesday. You’ll be working through worksheet 1, with a TA to help you if you get stuck or confused. (You might like to start the worksheet before tutorial, and make a note about where things start to get confusing so you can ask about it.) Make sure you get to where you practice handing in an assignment, so that when the real thing comes around, you will know what to do.
    • Looking further ahead, worksheet 2 will come out next week, and after that, Assignment 1 will open (based on the first two worksheets).
    • My course plan is here, subject to changes as we go. (I am trying to get away from Google Sheets.)

  • 2026-09-10 15:15: As a result of a conversation in office hours, on the lecture notes page, I added some instructions about how you can use the files in the Code column to get a copy of the code that I run in class.

  • 2026-09-10 10:45: data files for today’s class:

  • 2026-09-07 20:20:

  • 2026-09-07 20:00: The lectures in this course will not be recorded. This is an in-person course at an in-person university, and you are expected to attend lectures, pay attention, and take notes. This is the route to success in this course (or indeed any course). In my experience, students who do not attend lectures struggle in the course, and especially on the exams. My lecture slides are available (see the lecture notes link above), but be aware that I say a lot more than is on them. In office hours, I am happy to answer specific questions, but I will not reteach anything that was in the lecture.

  • 2026-09-03 15:30: A reminder that if you are on the waitlist for a course (this course or any course), all you can do is wait and see what happens. It is not appropriate to ask your instructor for special treatment. You should have backup plans in case you don’t get into the course you are waitlisted for. If you are close to graduation, it is up to you to take advantage of your early enrolment date to get into the courses you want. The waitlist in STAC32 tends to move very slowly.

  • 2026-08-31 17:00 (edited 17:30): Course starts the day after Labour Day. I am (I hope) ready to go, and I hope you are too. Three quick things:

    • we have a Quercus page. The main reason for having this is as a place for you to:
      • submit assignments
      • see your marked assignments and exams
      • ask course-material questions on the Discussion board.
    • the course outline should you wish to see it before the course begins.
    • if you applied to join the Applied Statistics Minor program in the August round of applications, you should be receiving a decision (on Acorn) in the next day or two.

  • 2026-08-24 12:50: Just had a look at our classrooms (all in IA). The lectures are in “The Keystone”. The tutorials are in regular classrooms (albeit ones with lots of plugins), so you will need to bring a laptop for the tutorials, or at least be willing to share one with a friend. (Tutorials start in week 2 as usual.)

  • 2026-08-20 13:15: I have found space in STAC32 for a few students from the waitlist, and have asked for them to be added to the course. My criteria were:

    • registered in the Statistics Applied Minor program
    • have 13 or more credits now (and so may be able to graduate by next summer).

    I may be able to do something similar for students in the program who reach 13 credits by the end of the summer semester, but this is not a guarantee, and you should have backup plans.

    Students not in the Statistics Applied Minor program, regardless of the number of credits they have completed, should not expect to make it into STAC32, and students in the program who have fewer credits will have to take their chances with the waitlist. There is an August application period for the program, but it is unlikely that there will be room in this year’s STAC32 even for successful applicants then.

  • 2026-08-05 14:00: my position on AI and the use of devices in class.

  • 2026-08-05 11:15: the course has a waitlist. If you are currently on it, I advise you to have backup plans in case you don’t make it in. Everybody on the waitlist wants to be in the course, so you will need to wait your turn.

  • 2026-06-29 18:00 (edited 2026-08-05 11:45): time to open things up for the fall 2026 edition of this course:

    • I will be checking prerequisites. To take STAC32, you must have completed (by the time STAC32 starts in September) either STAB27 or PSYC08 or MGEB12, or another equivalent that has already been approved by me. If you have not completed one of these courses by then, you will be removed from STAC32.
    • Notes:
      • you need to have completed one of these courses to be considered for admission to the Applied Statistics Minor program.
      • Psychology is revamping its Statistics courses; if you have taken PSYB07 but it was impossible for you to take PSYC08 because it was never offered in a semester after the one in which you took PSYB07, you should take the new PSYC06 as your second course, which will in any case prepare you better for the program than the new PSYB06 does.
    • Program FAQ.