1Psychology 210: Psychological Statistics Spring Semester, 2014. Monday and Wednesday, 2:30 – 3:50. Maxey 207. Lab Tuesdays, 7:30 - 8:30 p.m. Maxey Computer Lab. Instructor: Wally Herbranson Office: 344 Maxey Hall Telephone: 527-5217 Home: 240-8178 (before 11:00 please) E-mail: [email protected] (often the best way to reach me) Office hours: Monday & Tuesday 11-12; and by appointment Class web page: http://people.whitman.edu/~herbrawt/classes/210/psych210.html Course Materials Required Text: Bluman, A.G. (2012). Elementary Statistics: A Step by Step Approach (8th ed.) New York: McGraw Hill. The text is available at the Whitman bookstore. By the second week or so, you’ll want to get into the habit of lugging it to class (or finding a buddy who does), as the various tables will be needed for completing problems and exercises. For the same reason, you’ll want to be absolutely certain you have your copy with you on exam day. Calculator: You’ll also want to have a calculator to bring to class and exams. It need not be fancy, but should be capable of handling exponents and square roots. If you don’t already own one, the bookstore carries several nice calculators, in varying levels of impressiveness. Course Overview This course is intended to provide an introduction to data analysis, probability theory, and statistical methods as they are commonly used in psychology. Understanding and being able to perform these analyses is an important part of grasping how psychology is done, as statistics constitute some of the most powerful tools available to psychologists. Unfortunately, statistical analyses are also some of the most constraining and misused tools available to psychologists. It is my hope that students will gain not only the ability to properly calculate and interpret statistics, but will also gain an appreciation for why these methods are used, and what their various strengths and weaknesses are. An Important Note: Psych 210 is a class that rewards tenacity. The most successful students are invariably those who stay on top of homework and lab assignments. Not only do these make up a sizable chunk of your grade, but completing them will help you2perform better on exams. While it sometimes requires a serious effort, you will be well-served by completing readings and assignments in a timely fashion. Even more than most classes, a sustained effort is immensely preferable to concentrated cramming sessions before exams. Grading and Assignments Your grade in Psychology 210 will be based on the following assignments: 4 exams – 80% (20% each) Numerous homework assignments – 20% total Exam format: Exams will be part open-book and part closed-book. You will begin with the closed book portion; once you have finished, you can turn in that section and begin the open book portion. Once the closed-book portion has been turned in, you will not be able to go back to it. The closed-book items will be mostly theoretical, relating to the basic logic of statistical analysis, and will not require calculations. The open-book items will be numerical problems, many of which will require computation. You will be allowed to use calculators, notes and textbooks for these items, but please show all steps in the calculation of your answer so that partial credit can be given in the case of minor procedural or computational errors. Weekly Labs: The optional lab component of the course will meet every week in the Maxey hall computer lab. These sessions will show you how to take advantage of computers’ willingness to slog through millions of monotonous calculations without the smallest complaint. Specifically, we will learn how to analyze data sets using SPSS for Windows, hopefully eliminating the threats to sanity and leisure time once posed by large data sets. Most labs will include a small assignment that needs to be completed and turned in for grading. You should be able to finish them during the lab period, but will have one week to turn them in (i.e., by the beginning of the next lab session). Homework Assignments: Homework will be assigned on a regular basis, and involve completing problems by hand. For hand calculations, please show your work so that the sources of procedural and mathematical errors can be pinpointed. For full credit, you’ll need to turn them in at the beginning of the next class period. I’ll also accept them up to one week late for half credit.3Extra-credit opportunities: Extra credit may be earned in three ways: 1) By correcting your own exam. You may turn in corrections to the open book portion of your exam for up to 1 week, and half the difference between your original exam and the corrected version will be added to your score. 2) By bringing me examples of “statistics abuse” from the popular media. This could be a misleading use of probability, an incorrectly calculated or interpreted statistic, a poorly represented graph or chart... anything relevant to the class. Bring me the original error (clipping from print media, video clip, etc), along with a short paragraph describing why it is an inappropriate use of statistics. 3) By participating in experiments conducted by individuals affiliated with the Whitman College Psychology Department (faculty or senior thesis research). After participating, write a short description of the experiment, and a summary of how you would choose to analyze the data (based on what we've covered in class). Thus, you may want to ask the researcher some questions during the post-experiment debriefing (include the name of the researcher, so that I can be sure which experiment you're describing). Grading Scale: Grades will be assigned based on the percentage of all possible points earned (see above for the relative contributions of each assignment). Below are the overall performance ranges that result in various letter grades. A 93-100% C 73-76% A- 90-92% C- 70-72% B+ 87-89% D+ 67-69% B 83-86% D 63-66% B- 80-82% D- 60-62% C+ 77-79% F Below 60% The top 10 reasons to become a statistician: 10. In statistics, deviation is expected. 9. It’s your lifelong ambition to be wrong 5% of the time. 8. After two hours at a statistics conference, you feel like James Dean. 7. Nobody else will want your job. 6. Wait… Statistic? I thought you said sadistic. 5. Finally understand what snooty baseball fans mean by “on base percentage” 4. Gain a