INTRODUCTION TO STATISTICAL THEORY

This objective of this book is to present an elementary systematic treatment of mathematical statistics from a theoretical point of view. An attempt has been made to restrict consideration to important fundamental ideas and to describe these in some detail, so that the student will appreciate the motivation as well as the mathematics of the theory. Too often students who have finished a course in statistics come away with only a vague notion of the central ideas and methods of the subject. It is hoped that this text will uncover the unity and logical structure of statistical methods.

The theoretical development has been based on a few of the elementary notions of decision theory. This permits the treatment of Bayesian methods in addition to the more traditional methods: however, space did not permit the introduction of more than the most basic of these methods. The Bayesian techniques occur at the end of each chapter: therefore they can be omitted if time does not permit their inculision.