Psychology 100A Psychological Statistics Summer 2006 Meetings Class TR 10 45 to 12 50 Franz 1260 Discussion F 11 30 12 20 Franz 1260 Instructors Weeks 1 3 Sean McAuliffe Office hours Mon 11 30 12 30 Thu 1 00 2 00 1346 Franz Hall middle psychology building behind the vending machines EMAIL vpstatman hotmail com Weeks 4 6 Mark Otten Office hours TBA EMAIL mpotten ucla edu Teaching Assistants Nataria Joseph Email njoseph ucla edu Office hours to be announced Textbook Statistical concepts for the behavioral sciences 3rd Edition by Harold KIESS Overview In this course we will cover the basic data analysis concepts and procedures used by research psychologists The course will briefly review ways of describing data descriptive statistics and methods of evaluating hypotheses and testing psychological theories inferential statistics Examples will be drawn almost exclusively from the psychological literature Specific topics include correlation t tests and ANOVA Course Requirements and Grading It is very important that you attend all classes in order to keep up with the material Your grade will depend on your performance on the midterms and final exams If you miss some lectures and get lost you will be in serious trouble because concepts build on other concepts Statistics is cumulative but the exams emphasize recent materials Exams include material from the book and from lecture Grading basis Midterm 1 Midterm 2 40 points 40 questions 40 points 40 questions As you will learn in the course the distribution of scores can be described in a standardized way A Z score is a standardized score which indicates how far a particular score is away from the mean or average score in terms of standard deviations a measure of how wide a distribution is Exam scores that are above the mean will have a positive Z score exam scores below the mean will have a negative Z score Your average Z score on the exams will determine your grade Below is the correspondence between the average Z score and the grade you will receive Next to the Z score is the approximate of the class that will get that grade Average Z score 1 30 0 85 0 55 0 25 0 00 0 25 0 85 1 30 1 70 1 70 Grade A AB B BC C CD F Approximate of class receiving score 10 10 10 10 10 10 20 10 5 5 I will not respond to any emails asking me what your grade means or where you stand in the class your z score tells you everything you need to know Here is an example to clarify Exam 1 Z score 1 0 Exam 2 Z score 0 4 Average z score 1 0 0 4 2 1 4 2 0 7 C Your grade is up to you While the course is going on I will do as much as I can to make sure you learn as much as you can about this material If you want to learn more or you are confused COME TO OFFICE HOURS I may be ugly but I am not that scary in my office At the end of every quarter after the final there are inevitably a handful of students who beg me for a way to increase their grade because they didn t seek help when they had the chance My answer to these requests to change grades is always the same No No No No No It would be grossly unfair to all students if I ever allowed anything but the scores determine the grade Fairness is very important and fairness is the reason why a student will NEVER be able to increase their grade after the course is done You must take both exams to pass the course Missing the either exam will result in an F No incompletes extra credit etc are given in 100A Exam difficulty The exams are DIFFICULT The scores are curved so this is really not a problem In fact hard exams are good because they allow the students who know more to distinguish themselves from those who don t know very much An exam that is too easy does not allow for a wide enough spread in the distribution Some of the exam questions will be similar to questions in the book or examples done in class Some of the questions will require you to understand the concepts well enough to relate them to each other in a potentially novel way Cheating We hate cheaters and will do everything possible to get you kicked out of school if we catch you No kidding here cheating is serious business and if we catch you then you are history Note we have had a lot of experience at catching cheaters so just don t do it Book and Calculator You may not use your book for the exams but you will need a calculator Bring extra fresh batteries Failing to bring a calculator will severely compromise your ability to complete the exams Formula Sheets No formula sheet will be given out for use during the exams Students often complain that memorizing a bunch of formulas is stupid because it is not conceptual Unfortunately this thinking is wrong As you will learn in this course the formula cannot be separated from the concept and in some cases the formula IS the concept Course Web Site Web site will contain Midterm and final grades Website addresses for demonstrations and other resources A discussion board where you can ask questions Any other administrative messages Go to www psych ucla edu Select resources Select course web pages Select 100A Psychology courses now use Bruin OnLine BOL IDs as your Username Your password is your 9 digit student ID number Go to the undergraduate advising office if you have trouble logging in to the system or don t have an id Lecture Overheads and Lab Materials The course website will contain powerpoint files of the lecture and lab material Many students find it very helpful to print these off BEFORE they come to lab lecture so they do not get a cramped hand writing down notes The materials for a week will be available by Monday at 6 00 p m for all of the relevant materials that week Note that you can print these materials out in the computer labs if you do not have a computer at home Course Schedule If you read ahead the lectures are no longer presenting new material but rather are emphasizing what you are already familiar with CH 14 is not covered Week Day Date Material Introduction Variables Central tendency Variability and normal curve 1 Jun 27 Jun 29 Tue Thu 2 Jul 4 Tue July 6 Thu No Class America s Birthday Sampling distributions and single sample mean testing Hypothesis testing 3 Jul 11 Jul 13 Tue Thu 4 Jul 18 Jul 20 5 6 Chapter readings Lecture 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 7 8 3 Hypothesis testing Dependent t tests MIDTERM EXAM 1 9 4 Tue Thu Independent t tests Power 9 5 6 Jul 25 Jul 27 Tue Thu Anova between and within Two way …