Psychology 611Advanced Statistical and Research Methods for Psychology I FALL 2006Instructor: Patrick E. McKnight, Ph.D.Office: David King 2065Office Hours: T 10:15am-11:30am and by appointmentPhone: 993-8292E-mail: [email protected] Location: Robinson Hall B104Class Date/Time: Monday 1:30pm-4:10pmClass website: http://mres.gmu.edu/PSYC611/Teaching AssistantsTA Secs Office HoursJulius Najab 201 W [email protected] 202Susan Han 203 M [email protected] 204 W 1-2pmDavid Cades 205 M 12:30-1:[email protected] 206 M 4:30-5:30pmPlease refer to the lab syllabus for spec ific instruc-tions on the lo c ations and time for your assigned lab.PrerequisitesIn order to cover the most important material and en-sure adequate student preparation, I insist that stu-dents come with some knowledge of statistics. Thatknowledge is the understanding and application ofthe following concepts and terms: measures of centraltendency (e.g., mean, median, mode), measures ofdispersion (e.g., variance, standard deviation, range),tests of difference (e.g., t-tests, ANOVA), measuresof asso ciation (e.g., correlation, covariance), tests ofassociation (e.g., regression, chi-square), research de-sign, variables, and distributions. To ensure that allstudents are familiar with these concepts, I will ad-minister a self-assessment on the first day of class.Students who recognize that they are not preparedto take the course will be strongly encouraged totake a more introductory course. Those students whofeel confident and prepared to take the course will berequired to sign a statement that they acknowledgethese pre-requisites and that they take responsibil-ity for either possessing the required knowledge orstudying to acquire the knowledge.Required TextbooksCampbell, D.T. and Stanley, J.C. (1963/2005) Exper-imental and quasi-experimental designs for research.Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin. (ISBN: 0-395-30787-2). I refer to this text as C&S later.Tabachnick, B.C. and Fidell, L.S. (2007). Us-ing multivariate statistics, 5th Edition. Boston, MA:Pearson/Allyn and Bacon. (ISBN: 0-205-45938-2). Irefer to this text at T&F later.Optional TextbooksStudents who struggle with general writing or basicunderstanding of statistical terminology may bene-fit from reading Zinsser and Gonick & Smith, re-spectively. I recommend both books for all studentssince we all struggle with writing and basic concepts.These books present both topics in very easily di-gestable formats.Zinsser, W. (2006). On writing well. New York:Collins. (ISBN: 0060891548) or any other edition.Gonick, L. and Smith, W. (1994). The cartoonguide to statistics. New York: Collins. (ISBN:0062731025)Additional ReadingI provide additional articles for download through-out the semester. These articles are noted in thecourse outline (see Tentative Schedule below) butthere might be relevant but unplanned readings thatcome to my attention during the course. I will post alladditional readings to the course website (see above)and send out a note about additional posted articles.I do not anticipate adding much more reading thanwhat is already assigned but be forewarned that itmight happen.1Course OverviewPsychology 611 is the first of a two-c ourse sequencethat serves to introduce psychology graduate studentsto statistics, research methodology, research design,and measurement. Traditional graduate psychologystatistics courses emphasize statistical techniques asa matter of declaritive knowledge. Students are ex-pected to know each procedure and its “appropri-ate” application. An alternative approach tends to-ward technical discourse (e.g., matrix algebra, for-mula memorization, and hand calculations) and re-quires greater attention to minute detail and mathe-matical vernacular. A less used but equally suitableapproach treats statistics as a method of principledargument. The method I use for this course is a hy-brid of the three approaches. You will be expected toknow the statistical terminology, apply your knowl-edge in both carrying out the procedure as well asinterpreting the results, and to use those results in amanner consistent with scientific discourse.Course ObjectivesThe purpose of this course is to further your intro-duction to data analysis, research design, and mea-surement. Your previous coursework ought to haveprepared you well by covering measures of centraltendency, measures of dispersion, measures of asso-ciation, and measures of difference. Due to time con-straints, I do not intend to review these terms or theirpurp os es so I urge every student to review that ma-terial prior to this course. What I do intend to coveris a comprehensive view of univariate, bivariate andmultivariate statistics - why we use statistics, whyyou should learn these tools, and what are the mostimportant features to learn and understand. You willgain practical skills in interpreting, applying and ex-plaining statistical procedures. The combination ofan interactive lecture and a weekly laboratory willoffer each student the opportunity to see the proce-dures, conduct the procedures yourselves, and thenteach one another what you learned. This approachis the common medical model of education - see one,do one, and teach one - that results in better reten-tion and deeper understanding.Specific ObjectivesThe primary objective is to familiarize you with the following procedures and analytic approaches. Byfamiliar, I mean that you will be able to identify the key features of each, communicate these features toothers, and know when and how to apply them to real data. I organized them below according to general areasrelated to statistics, research methods, and measurement, however, as you will soon realize, the categorieslisted in the table below are not unique and represent fairly arbitrary distinctions.Procedures: . Regression . ANOVA . GLMDetails: . Predicted . Expected . ResidualModels: . Fixed . Random . MixedDesigns: . Experiment . Quasi-Experiment . ObservationComplexity: . Univariate . Bivariate . MultivariateApproach: . Cross-sectional . Longitudinal . MixedLevel: . Within . Between . MixedEffects: . Direct . Mediation . ModerationContext: . Discovery vs. JustificationProcess: . Hypothesis Testing vs. Parameter EstimationGrading CriteriaExamsTo evaluate your familiarity with the concepts wecover, I will administer two comprehensive examsthroughout the semester - one mid-term and one finalexam. The exams will be a mixture of response for-mats but certainly will require you to compute