collageFree online courses in statistics are available for those seeking help in the subject without worrying about tuition or registration. However, if you’re looking for classes that can help you attain credit for school, these courses are a limited resource. Study.com can serve as a relatively low-cost option for those in need of credit. with online classes taught by professional instructors. These engaging courses contain both videos and transcripts of the lesson material, with practice quizzes to help you test yourself along the way.
Students can try out Statistics 101: Principles of Statistics, which covers content such as visual displays of data, matters of probability, and testing a hypothesis. Other topics discussed include:
- Sampling – Learn about random sampling, the law of large numbers, sampling distribution, and more.
- Regression & Correlation – Flesh out scatterplots, simple linear regression, residuals, and related statistical concepts.
- Summarizing Data – Delve into data set spreads, finding percentiles, calculating standard deviations, and related operations.
- Statistical Estimation – Some of the topics dealt with in this chapter include biased and un
- biased estimators, using the t distribution, determining sample size, and calculating confidence intervals.
What is statistics?
Statistics is a branch of mathematics focused on the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data. Data sets can include full population data, surveys, smaller random samples, qualitative data, and much more. Statisticians can apply a number of data analysis techniques to better understand what the data means and how different data points or data sets relate to each other. For example, a pollster can conduct surveys on voter sentiment to determine which issues are likely driving voters to the polls. They can also use statistics to determine how closely their sample of voters reflects the larger population.
Where Can I Find Free Statistics Courses Online?
The following universities offer college-level statistics courses online. Although students cannot use their time online to earn college credit towards a degree or certificate program, much of the content of these courses is available to self-learners for free and without the need for registration or enrollment.
Online Statistics Courses for Credit
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) first launched its OpenCourseWare site in 2000. Today, the school publishes almost its entire undergraduate and graduate course content online for free. Many undergraduate and graduate-level statistics courses are available through MIT’s mathematics OCW program, including:
- Introduction to Probability and Statistics goes over topics such as basic combinations, random variables, probability distributions, and more.
- Statistics for Applications looks at subjects like confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, chi-square tests, and related statistical uses.
- Statistical Learning Theory and Applications focuses on several core aspects of computational neuroscience while looking at concepts related to boosting and feature selection.
- Mathematical Statistics centers around decision theory and estimation while also examining topics like asymptotic efficiency of estimates.
Open University
The Open University, based in the United Kingdom, was founded with the mission of providing quality online learning. It has an open admissions policy, and enrolled students can earn a degree or certificate online. However, the school also offers many courses for free via an OpenLearn website, The Learning Space. Students can check out the following when searching for statistics courses:
- Finding Information in Mathematics and Statistics aims to help students identify and employ statistical information for a wide variety of purposes.
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a participant in the Open Learning Initiative, a sister project to OpenCourseWare. The OLI gathers data on student learning in order to provide feedback to instructors and course designers with the goal of creating useful, scientifically-based online courses that are available for free to all. OLI statistics courses offered through CMU include:
- Probability and Statistics examines fundamental concepts of statistical reasoning while breaking down various statistical applications and concepts of probability.
- Causal and Statistical Reasoning takes an in-depth look at the validity of statistical claims and presents methods of determining the value of such claims.
- Empirical Research Methods looks at topics such as random variables, data samples, interpreting graphs, and more.
Johns Hopkins University
The Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University (JHSPH) offers its most popular courses online via OpenCourseWare. The school’s mission is to provide equal and open access to information about public health challenges and their solutions. The courses are, therefore, all related in some fashion to issues in world health. Statistics-related OpenCourseWare courses at JHSPH include:
- Introduction to Biostatistics goes over several matters of data and data types while serving as an introduction to biostatistical concepts and reasoning.
- Biostatistics for Medical Product Regulation fleshes out topics like basic study design, target population, comparison groups, and endpoints.
- Methods in Biostatistics I and II introduces concepts of applied probability, exploratory data analysis, and statistical interference while expanding on topics of probability models, variance, central limit theorem, and more.
- Statistics for Laboratory Scientists I and II looks at the basic applications of statistics within experimental biological sciences while demonstrating methods of exploring, organizing, and presenting data.
- Statistics for Psychosocial Research: Structural Models centers on quantitative approaches to constructing theory based on response variables while exploring topics like the statistical basis for causal inference; principles of path analysis; linear structural equation analysis, and related concepts.
- Statistics in Psychosocial Research: Measurement offers quantitative methods of measurement in psychological fields of study while delving into the principles of psychometrics, the statistical basis for latent variable analysis, and more.
Free Online Statistics Course Curriculum
In this section, each module of the Free Statistics Course is explained.
| Sr. No. | Course Name | Number of Hours | Course Description |
| 1 | Statistics Essentials for Analytics – Beginners | 1 | The domain of analytics and data is closely related to and is also often overlapped with computational statistics which is essentially said to be the discipline that specializes in prediction-making. In this Free Online Statistics Course, you are going to study about the various basic statistical concepts which are of utmost importance towards handling data and doing data analytics along with their application using R, SPSS, and Minitab. The modules which are included in this training are Introduction to basic statistical elements, Measures of central tendency using Minitab software or R language, Measure of dispersion by making use of R/Minitab software, Simple linear regression and correlation by making use of R program, Understanding of normal distribution by making use of R program. |
Which tangible skills you will learn in this course?
- The Free Online Statistics Course aims to provide you a sound mathematical knowledge over the fundamentals and the concepts which are not always or generally put into usage and practice can be well placed and put into application by the use of statistics.
- It also aims to enhance your computer science skills as it is used to work on the algorithms and concepts as well as the theory related to statistics.
- Without making use of computer terminology and technology making your application through statistics will become quite a difficult task.
- Apart from these skills, analytical skills, modeling skills, interpolation skills, data cleansing and data crunching kind of skills are among the ones which are best suited if you are willing to become part of this Free Online Statistics Course.
- Other skills include the ones related to probability and predictions as the use of predictive analysis is taught along with every other detail related to Free Online Statistics Course
Pre-requisites
Every course has a certain pre-requisite which must be taken into consideration to make sure that you have done all the background work and the homework required for that course to begun and that you can get the maximum benefit out of the course prepared as you would be strong with the pre-requisites.
Similarly, we are going to read about some of the basic pre-requisites for the Free Online Statistics Course.
- The first and foremost pre-requisite is related to the mathematical background. The candidate should either have some degree or equivalent in any mathematics degree or should have a mathematical background as the concepts related to statistics are all advanced forms of mathematics.
- The other pre-requisite is that the candidate should be proficient in computers and should have a sound knowledge of making use of computer science techniques and features as this Free Online Statistics Course will talk about the techniques which will be beneficial for somebody who has been belonging from a computer science background.
- Next is that the candidate should have a sound understanding of the data analytics skills and data collection, extraction, interpolation, cleansing, transformation, loading, etc. skills are also good to have as this Free Online Statistics Course constantly focuses on the need to learn and be able to manipulate data.
- Other than this the knowledge of programming languages such as R, SPSS, Minitab tool as these tools will be used throughout the course. Other pre-requisites include having a great level of interest and enthusiasm for the course.
Target Audience
The target audience for this Free Online Statistics Course includes software professionals, data scientists, software developers, analysts, data engineers, data architects, solution architects, technical architects, IT operations, software engineers as well as technical managers. This also includes everybody interested to learn more about the statistics course either out of interest or for using it into their work in some form or the other. Therefore, the target audience also includes ones such as entrepreneurs, students who are interested to be a part of it to complete their project or doing some form of innovation, researchers, etc.
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