One of the major challenges in teaching lab classes is the need to teach uncertainty analysis and other topics in statistics in a concise manner while also teaching all of the other topics that make a successful lab class. While there are many quality courses in statistics at the University of Minnesota, we do not have space in our curriculum to require such a class in advance of the lab classes. For this reason, we have put together a set of notes that cover the key topics that are needed in the lab classes (confidence intervals, error propagation, instrument error, and linear regression) in a concise manner.
Overview of the notes
The goal in producing these notes was not to create a textbook or provide complete coverage of statistics for science and engineering. Rather, we wanted to emphasize a few key points:
- Cover only the topics that are relevant to our classes
- Sufficient mathematical background so that the notes are not just a recipe for applying formulas, but less rigor than would be taught in a math or stats class
- Provide a range of examples, from simple problems to longer, comprehensive analyses
The notes were written primarily for the unit operations class, and the examples are drawn from chemical engineering processes. There is also significant attention paid to connecting lab work to chemical engineering design, which is a key part of our unit ops class.
Downloads and updates
The most recent version of the notes can be downloaded from this link. The latest version was compiled on August 8, 2020. As we find mistakes and update the notes, this website will also be updated.
Sending corrections
If you find any errors in the text, please contact Kevin Dorfman. We do not have any plans to increase the scope of the notes, but we do want them to be correct!
Using these notes in your class
If you find these notes useful for your own course, we'd be happy to hear about it. Please be sure to cite this website as the source for the material.