Course Syllabus
PSY 340 --- Statistics for the Social Sciences
Department of Psychology --- Illinois State University
Fall, 2002
Tu & Th --- 12:35pm to 1:50pm

Instructor

Dr. Matthew Hesson-McInnis
415 DeGarmo Hall
Department of Psychology
Illinois State University
Campus Box 4620
Normal, IL 61790-4620

Office Hours

Wednesdays 10:00am to 11:00am
Wednesdays 1:00pm to 3:00pm,
or by appointment

Email address: mshesso@ilstu.edu

Instructor Web Page: http://www.ilstu.edu/~mshesso

Mallard Web Page: https://mallard.ilstu.edu/psy340/

Course Catalogue Description

Prerequisite: PSY/ECO/GEO/POS 138 (not for credit if had PSY 240 or PSY 345)
3 Semester Hours
Advanced statistical techniques for the behavioral sciences including hypothesis testing, inferential statistics, and data analysis using SPSS.

Readings:

Required:

Moore, D. S., & McCabe, G. P. (1999). Introduction to the Practice of Statistics, 3rd Ed. New York: W. H. Freeman.
American Psychological Association (2001). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th Ed. Washington, DC: Author.

Accommodations

Any student needing to arrange a reasonable accommodation for a documented disability should contact Disability Concerns at 350 Fell Hall, 438-5853 (voice), 438-8620 (TDD). Students who ask the instructor for special accommodations based on disabilities must work with Disability Concerns to assess and document their needs.

Course Overview

This course is designed to cover hypothesis testing in the behavioral sciences, building on concepts learned in PSY/ECO/GEO/POS 138. The logic, assumptions, computation, and interpretation of inferential statistics will be covered, including one-sample, related-samples, and independent-samples t-tests; one-way and two-way ANOVA; correlation and bivariate regression; and non-parametric procedures. In addition to the logic of hypothesis testing, PSY 340 will integrate the use of the software package SPSS as a tool for data management and hypothesis testing. Writing skills will also be developed through a research report and written exam questions.

Students who have met the course prerequisitive other than through PSY/ECO/GEO/POS 138 are strongly encouraged to attend an SPSS tutorial review session. These sessions are designed as a self-paced set of labs to acquaint you with basic operations in SPSS, with staff provided to provide individual guidance rather than lecture-type demonstrations. Students who took the 138 course are, of course, also welcome to brush up on their skills if they so desire.

These sessions are schedule for the first four Fridays of the semester, with both morning and afternoon times:

August 23 10am to 12pm 2pm to 5pm

August 30 10am to 12pm 2pm to 5pm

September 6 10am to 12pm 2pm to 5pm

September 13 10am to 12pm 2pm to 5pm

Course Objectives

As a result of taking PSY 340 students will have the opportunity to apply important quantitative reasoning skills as they relate to research in the behavioral sciences. Specifically, the course will help students develop the following skills and abilities:

Think critically about the use of hypothesis testing in the behavioral sciences.
Choose an appropriate statistical test for specific forms of data and hypotheses.
Understand the logic and mathematical basis for different inferential statistics.
Use computers and the software package SPSS as a tool for data management and hypothesis testing.
Draw valid conclusions about hypotheses from the results of different statistical tests.
Coherently describe conclusions from a hypothesis test in written form.

Course Topics:

Descriptive Statistics
Introduction to SPSS
Methods of Study
Relating Samples and Populations through Hypothesis Testing
t-tests
Hypothesis Testing with SPSS (t-tests)
Analysis of Variance
ANOVA with SPSS
Two-Way ANOVA with SPSS
Correlation and Bivariate Regression
Nonparametric Statistics (time permitting)

Topical Outline

Review Descriptive Statistics: An Introduction to SPSS
1. General Procedures in SPSS
  1. Starting the Program
  2. Data Files and Formats
  3. Windows
    - Data (data view tab and Variables tab)
    - Output
    - Syntax
  4. Menus and Dialogue Boxes
2. Scales of Measurement
  1. Continuous
  2. Discrete
  3. Defining Variable Types
  4. Defining Variable Labels
  5. Defining Value Labels
3. Central Tendency (Chapter 1.2)
  1. Mean
  2. Median
  3. Mode
4. Variability (Chapter 1.2)
  1. Range
  2. Standard Deviation and Variance
Methods of Study
1. Experiments (Chapter 3)
  1. Variables
    - independent
    - dependent
  2. Causality
2. Correlational Studies (Chapter 2)
  1. Relationships between measures
  2. Prediction
  3. Correlation (alone) does not prove causation
  4. Correlations can establish causation if and only if
    - Multiple studies find the strong correlations across diverse samples
    - There is a plausible causal mechanism that accounts for temporal ordering
    - Alternative explanations are ruled out
Relating Samples and Populations
1. Concepts of Probability (Chapter 4)
2. Probability Distributions (Chapter 5)
  1. Sampling Distribution of a Statistic
  2. Law of Large Numbers
  3. Central Limit Theorem
3. Steps of Hypothesis Testing - Inference Testing (Chapter 6)
  1. Stating hypotheses
  2. Decision Criterion - alpha (a)
  3. Sample Statistic
  4. Distribution of the sample statistic
  5. Evaluating the Null Hypothesis in probabilistic terms
  6. Errors in Hypothesis Testing
4. Power
Hypothesis Testing Using t-tests (Chapter 7)
1. The t distribution
2. Simple Inference Testing (one sample t-test; Chapter 7.1)
  1. SPSS Data
  2. SPSS Menus and Dialogues
  3. SPSS Output and Interpretation
3. Inferences for Dependent Measures (related-samples; Chapter 7.1)
  1. SPSS Data
  2. SPSS Menus and Dialogues
  3. SPSS Output and Interpretation
4. Inferences for Two Populations (independent-samples t-test; Chapter 7.2)
5. Assumptions and Levene's Test
  1. SPSS Data
  2. SPSS Menus and Dialogues
  3. SPSS Output and Interpretation
6. Writing Results from t-tests
7. Choosing which t-test to use
Exam 1
Analysis of Variance
1. Logic of ANOVA
2. Between and Within Groups Variance
3. Numerator and Denominator degrees of freedom
4. The F-distribution
5. One-way Analysis of Variance on SPSS (Chapter 12)
  1. Data
  2. Menus and Dialogues
  3. Output and Interpretation
  4. Writing Results from one-way ANOVA
6. Post hoc Tests
  1. Tukey
  2. Scheffe
7. Two-way ANOVA (Chapter 13)
8. Analysis of Variance on SPSS (two-way)
  1. Data
  2. Menus and Dialogues
  3. Output and Interpretation
  4. Writing Results from two-way ANOVA
9. Generalizing to three-or-more-way ANOVA
Exam 2
Correlation and Bivariate Regression (Chapters 10 & 11)
1. Correlations as Descriptive Statistics
2. Correlations as Inferential Statistics
3. Bivariate Regression
  1. Logic
  2. Parameters
4. Assumptions
5. Correlations and Regression on SPSS
  1. Data
  2. Menus and Dialogues
  3. Output and Interpretation
  4. Writing Results from Correlations and Regressions
Nonparametric Statistics
1. Chi-squared test of equal proportions (Chapter 8)
  1. Proper Use
  2. Conducting Chi-square on SPSS
  3. Assumptions
2. Chi-squared test of independence (Chapter 9)
  1. Proper Use
  2. Conducting Chi-square on SPSS
  3. Assumptions
Final Exam Monday, December 9, 3:10pm to 5:10pm, DeG 13

Evaluating Student Performance

Homework --- 30%

Assignments are designed to assess students' knowledge of the specific statistical tests, the application of those tests to specific types of data, and the computation of those tests using SPSS. All homework is to be turned no later than the beginning of class on the due-date. Any work turned in after the due-date must be accompanied by one or more "blue cards" from psychology experiment participation. Each card specifies the number of hours of participation in half-hour increments. For each day late, you must provide evidence of one-half-hour of experimental participation. For example, an assignment due on Tuesday that is turned in on Thursday is two days late and requires either one blue-card for 1 hour or two blue-cards for 1/2 hour each. The instructor may waive the blue-card requirement if arrangements are made in advance (e.g., a student athlete has an out-of-town competition, a doctor advises you not to go to class and provides written documentation to that effect, an immediate family member dies). In all cases, written documentation may be requested. Late work that does not comply with the above policies will still be graded, must still be turned in, but will be given 50% of the possible points at best. Failure to complete even one assignment will result in a zero for all homework, preventing the student from obtaining a grade higher than a "C". The homework is essential to understanding concepts and practicing skills, thus all work must be completed regardless of whether the points have been lost due to tardiness.

Quizzes --- 10%

Students will take 5 to 7 quizzes during the semester. These quizzes will be unannounced (e.g., pop quizzes) and either administered in class using paper-and-pencil or using Mallard. The pop quizzes are intended to encourage class attendance; if you miss a class in which a pop quiz has been administered, you may be given the opportunity to make-up the quiz by performing additional work. Make-up quizzes will only be allowed for excused absences, will only be given at the discretion of the instructor, and will be limited in number (i.e., no more than four quizzes can be made up; after four have been made up, the student will receive zeroes on missed quizzes). Additionally, students must take each quiz, even if it will automatically be entered as a zero by the above policy.

Exams --- 30%

Three in-class exams will test students' conceptual and mathematical understanding of hypothesis testing. Exam questions will be short answer in nature, and each and every exam is implicitly and explicitly cumulative! Exams will cover all material covered in lecture and in the textbook. Similar to the homework assignments, make-up exams will be administered only in grave circumstances (e.g., medically unable by doctors written orders, death in the immediate family) or with prior approval of the instructor. You must also contact the instructor as early as it is feasible to arrange an absence from an exam and obtain a make-up exam. If you have valid reason why you cannot take the exam but wait until after the exam, you may not be given a make-up exam if it would have been reasonably possible to contact the instructor earlier. This policy does not mean that you have to have an ambulance pull over to call the instructor if you have a car accident on your way to an exam. You should, however, contact the instructor as soon as it is feasible to do so. Voice-mail and email make doing so very convenient.

Research Project --- 30%

Each student will complete a research project during the semester. The research project involves: choosing a topic problem and data set from several different data sets available from the instructor, choosing an appropriate statistical test for hypothesis testing for the problem chosen, running the appropriate test(s) using SPSS, interpreting the SPSS output, and writing a paper (roughly five pages) describing the problem and the conclusions from the statistical test results. This project will test students' ability to apply and conduct an inferential statistic to a specific problem of interest. The research report will be written in APA style and laser-printed (or printed with an inkjet printer of similar quality). Blurred printing, smudged printing, or less-than-laser quality printing is unacceptable and will result in a grade of 0. The projects are due on the last day of class; late projects will not be accepted and will be assigned a grade of zero. Additionally, failing to run a spell-check on the assignment will result in losing 10% for each spelling error that would have been caught by a standard spell-checking program.

Grading Scale

A weighted grade score will be calculated for each student in which the simple average of all assignments within each category are weighted according to the percentages above and added together:

score = 0.30*(homework average) + 0.10*(quiz average) + 0.30*(exam average) + 0.30*(project)

The total score will be computed and available within the Mallard web page for each student throughout the semester. Grades will be assigned based on the following ranges:

Grade	Percentage Score Range
A	90 < score < 100
B	80 < score < 90
C	70 < score < 80
D	60 < score < 70
F	0 < score < 60

Academic Dishonesty

Instances of academic dishonesty of any form will be treated seriously and harshly. Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, plagiarism (representing someone else's ideas or words as your own), cheating on an exam, or copying homework assignments. Additionally, making false statements to take a make-up quiz, to turn in late homework, to take a make-up exam, to obtain any kind of extension, or to obtain any kind of special consideration of any policy will constitute cheating and will be treated as such under this policy. This policy does not apply, however, to students who discuss the solution strategy to a problem or check answers with each other. In fact, these study strategies are to be encouraged. Students who copy each other's work or present another student's efforts as his or her own, however, are clearly cheating.

Any student who engages in academic dishonesty or allows it to occur will be subjected to one or more of the following consequences depending on the severity of the offense, at the sole discretion of the instructor: receiving a zero on the assignment in question; receiving the next lower letter grade than otherwise earned for the course; receiving a letter grade of "F" for the course; referral to the student judicial process (the consequences of which include disciplinary probation, suspension from coursework, or dismissal from the university).

Additionally, students have the responsibility to prevent others from copying their work on homework assignments, quizzes, exams, and the course project. Should evidence of such copying come to light, all parties involved in each incident will share the same consequences. Allowing someone to copy your work compromises the integrity of the evaluation and constitutes dishonest academic behavior; thus, the same consequences will apply. You will not be doing anyone any favors by allowing them to copy your work, be it on homework, quizzes, or exams.

Finally, all students are expected to conduct themselves in the classroom in a polite and respectful manner and in accordance with the student code of conduct. I expect all students to respect their colleagues by not behaving in any way that disrupts the classroom or makes it difficult for others to participate in class. Students who need to leave early are expected to sit close to the door and leave quietly. Likewise, students who arrive late are expected to sit in the most easily accessible seat and not climb over backpacks and books to sit in the back row.

Last modified Wednesday, August 28, 2002 2:34 PM

August 23	10am to 12pm	2pm to 5pm
August 30	10am to 12pm	2pm to 5pm
September 6	10am to 12pm	2pm to 5pm
September 13	10am to 12pm	2pm to 5pm

Course Syllabus PSY 340 --- Statistics for the Social Sciences Department of Psychology --- Illinois State University Fall, 2002 Tu & Th --- 12:35pm to 1:50pm