Chapter 1 Preamble

This script is a continuation of the first one for Quantitative Methods 1 at ZHAW.

In the first part, we learned about the basics of probability theory, descriptive statistics, Bayesian statistics, and hypothesis testing.

In this script, we will dive into the basics of statistical modeling - a world of aesthetic wonder and surprises.

This script is a first draft as you are the first group to be working with it.

Please feel free to send me suggestions for improvements or corrections.

This should be a collaborative effort and will (hopefully) never be finished as our insight grows over time.

The script can also be seen as a pointer to great sources which are suited to deepen your understanding of the topics. Knowledge is decentralized, and there are many great resources out there.

For the working setup with R, please see this and the following sections in the first script.

The complete code for this script can be found here.

1.1 Books we will heavily borrow from are:

1.2 If you need a good reason to buy great books…

Think of the total costs of your education. You want to extract maximum benefit from it. In the US, an education costs a lot. In beautiful Switzerland, the tuition fees (if applicable) are nowhere near these figures. Costs you could consider are opportunity costs of not working. A comparison with both, a foreign education or opportunity costs, justifies the investment in good books. Or: The costs of all the good books of your education combined are probably less than an iPhone Pro.