(PSY 225) PSYCHOLOGICAL STATISTICS

EXPECTATIONS

Content

This course is designed to acquaint students with the interpretation of basic descriptive and inferential  statistics as they would be used in psychological research.

Materials

The course consists of reading, lectures, demonstrations, written assignments, and discussion. It is your responsibility to keep current on these materials.

Attendance

Frequent absences will do nothing to increase my confidence that you have learned the material covered in this class. I will take attendance into consideration when determining final grades.

Assignments

There will be numerous homework assignments. These will be graded; it is expected that they be turned in on the day due. I will relent only in cases of extreme hardship such as plague, pestilence, famine, or other university approved excuse.

Honesty

Cases of cheating or plagiarism will result in no credit (0) for the assignment or test and an overall failing grade for the course.

Participation

Frequent participation in class discussions will assure me that your are awake, alert, involved, and are familiar with the material.  I will take participation into account when grading borderline cases.

Quizzes

There will be frequent quizzes. The topics and relevant reading are shown in the syllabus. In computing your overall grade I will drop your lowest quiz score.  The quizzes will be based on materials in the study guide, lecture notes, and the assigned readings.

Make Ups

Your first missed quiz will count as your lowest grade and will be dropped.  You may make-up any subsequent test, quiz, homework assignment, or paper, but you will loose one point per day for makeups unless you have a University-approved excuse justifying the delay.  Make-ups must be completed the week you return to class.

Final Exam

Grades

Your grades will be computed as follows:

Quizzes:  90%
Homework: 10%

Grade Scale

Grades will be calculated on the following scale:

A  90% and above
B  80 - 89%
C 70 - 79%
D 60 - 69%
F less than 60% 

Office Hours

Hours I will be available to discuss the course, the weather, or any topic of mutual interest at the hours posted above. If these are not convenient, please see me to make an appointment at another time.

Extra Credit 

None

Special Needs

If you have special learning needs, please let me know. Students requiring special considerations should get in touch with the Office of Services for Students with Disabilities. This office will notify me in writing of the accommodations you need in compliance with 504/ADA. If you have special learning needs, please let me know.

Course overview
Numbers and rounding

Variables
Descriptive statistics
Inferential statistics
Populations and samples
Measurement scales
Statistical Notation

Frequency Distributions
Graphs

Quiz #1

Measures of Central Tendency

Statistical Notation
Mean
Median
Mode

Quiz #2

Range
Variance
Standard Deviation

Quiz #3

z - scores
The Normal Curve
Standard Scores
Transformed Scores

Quiz #4

Introduction
Sampling Means
Standard Error of the Mean
One and two-tailed tests
The Z-Test

Answers to problems

Overview
Errors
Confidence Intervals
Statistical Power

Answers to Z-test problems

QUIZ #5

Introduction
Single Sample Test
Independent Samples Test
Repeated Measures Test
Significance Tests and Power

Answers to t-test problems

QUIZ #6

Introduction
Hypothesis Testing
Significance Tests and Power

Answers to ANOVA problems

QUIZ #7

Introduction
Correlation
Regression and prediction
Interpretation
Standard Errors

Answers to correlation problems

QUIZ #8