About

This is the website for the 3-credit course MTH 231 Elementary Statistics I: Exploratory Data Analysis, at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Fall semester, 2022.

Time: 9:00 AM-9:50 AM Monday & Friday
Online Wednesday

Place: Liberal Arts 218

What can you do with a math degree?

MTH 231 is a basic statistics course that is of interest and benefit to majors in a wide variety  of disciplines including biology, business, chemistry, crime and justice studies, data science, economics, engineering, mathematics, nursing, and political science.

Exploratory data analysis (EDA) is a basic statistical methodology, carried out to analyze data and to suggest hypotheses. It is a preliminary form of data analysis recommended by the National Institute of Standards & Technology and used widely in science, social science, engineering, and business & finance.

“Exploratory data analysis can never be the whole story, but nothing else can serve as the foundation stone–as the first step” (J. W. Tukey, 1977)

“Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than the exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise.”(J. W. Tukey, 1962)

” I realized that the quality of my analysis depended solely on the quality of my questions.” (Jorge Fenandes, UMass Dartmouth alum)

“In my first semester, I took a class with Professor Gary Davis called “Exploratory Data Analysis” that I would honestly consider life-changing. Professor Davis gave us the latitude to figure out which methods we ought to use on our own. The class unleashed my curiosity and reshaped my pre-conceived notions about what it means to learn. This experience eventually led me to apply to top PhD programs in statistics, and ultimately brought me to where I am today.” Salvadore Balkus