UCLA Winter 2023 Psych 100A Psychological Statistics Lec 2 T Th 2 00 3 15 Young CS 24 F 2 00 2 50 Young CS 76 Instructor Jim Stigler stigler ucla edu Office hours M 1 2 30 PM Teaching Assistants Icy Zhang yunyi9847 g ucla edu Rddhi Moodliar rddhim ucla edu Course Overview and Goals This course provides an introduction to statistical concepts and data analysis tools used by researchers in psychology We start with how we take variation in the world and turn it into data We then develop tools and concepts for exploring variation in data modeling variation and finally evaluating our models At the end of this course students should 1 Understand basic concepts that underlie statistics and data analysis and be able to use these concepts to make sense of new situations 2 Be able to do basic data analyses using R and Jupyter Notebooks and to communicate the results in writing 3 Be prepared to learn more advanced techniques in the future How to Succeed in the Course The course includes four opportunities for learning homework lectures sections and office hours The best way to succeed in the course is to take advantage of all of these opportunities 1 Online Interactive Textbook Homework The core work for this course will be done online for homework Lectures are designed to supplement the homework not substitute for it The materials are all accessed through our Bruinlearn course website and all course materials are free You should try to read the book thoroughly do all of the exercises and answer all of the questions Most importantly take the time necessary to make sense of the textbook Our focus throughout the course will be on understanding not memorization Students who came before you overwhelmingly tell us that the key to success in the course is to read the book carefully As you work through the homework be sure to write down questions and things you don t understand Bring these questions to lecture section or office hours Everything covered in Psych 100A Page 2 the online textbook is fair game for exams it is your responsibility to make sure you have understood the content Homework i e working through the textbook is due each week according to the schedule below You should expect the homework to take 6 8 hours or more per week so start early in the week You will need a computer to access the interactive textbook Tablets may work but phones will not We strongly recommend you use Chrome as your browser Safari also works Be sure your browser is updated to the latest version Technical support If you have technical issues with the online textbook please file a support ticket by clicking on the question mark in the blue diamond in the lower right hand corner of the page you re on see picture Describe your problem as fully as possible and include screen grabs to show us what you are seeing 2 Lectures Tuesdays and Thursdays Lectures are not intended to provide new information but to give you a chance to think deeply about and ask questions about what you are learning in the online book In class Jupyter Notebooks There will be a Jupyter Notebook on your Jupyter dashboard for each lecture This will include R code and datasets for use in class as well as room for you to take notes and write and run your own R code Other tools In addition to Jupyter Notebooks we will use three other tools to support interactions during lecture Poll Everywhere questions will be pushed during lecture and can be answered from within the Jupyter notebook To register go to pollev com stigler and click on the Registration link Either login if you have a Poll Everywhere account or sign up for a new account When it asks you to register with a presenter put in the presenter name stigler Ask for Me Questions may be posted anonymously at any time during lectures a link is available in the Jupyter notebook A TA will monitor the questions and raise them with the instructor during lecture Raise your hand And of course feel free to raise your hand at any time if you would like to ask questions during class If you have a question you can be fairly certain that other students have the same one Attending lectures is recommended but not required All required content is covered in the online textbook and a thorough working through of the textbook may be sufficient for some students However our experience shows that most students will learn more and earn higher grades if they participate actively in class It s highly recommended that you attend a few lectures before you decide if you want to come to lectures Psych 100A Page 3 Lectures will be recorded You can access recordings from the class website on BruinLearn Friday sections will be led by the teaching assistants Bring your questions and get answers to both your questions and those of others The sections before the midterm exams will be used as review sessions for the exam 3 Friday Sections 4 Office Hours The instructor and the teaching assistants will be holding weekly office hours If you feel that you need help or if you just want to talk about statistics come to office hours If you are not able to make regularly scheduled office hours email the instructor or TAs to schedule a time to meet Grades Final grades will be based on a weighted average of textbook completion homework class participation Jupyter notebooks the two midterms and a final exam Online Homework i e Working Through the Textbook Homework involves completing assigned chapters of the textbook answering all questions and completing all coding exercises before the due date Homework will be graded for completion not correctness Nevertheless you will not get credit for gibberish responses or for patterns that indicate random guessing If you do not complete all of the exercises and answer all of the questions before the deadline you will get 0 credit for that assignment There is no partial credit for homework NOTE Use the My Progress page to make sure you have completed each page of the book before the due date Class Participation Jupyter Notebooks Attendance in class is not required However there will be two methods for calculating your course grade one of which takes class participation into account To earn a participation point for a lecture you must complete and submit the lecture s Jupyter notebook before midnight on the day of the lecture If there is no notebook for a lecture e g during the midterm you will get a free participation point for that lecture Everyone will get two free points meaning you can miss