Table of Contents:
Administrative Matters
Course Goals
Plan of Course
First Part of Course
Making the Mastery Exam Work For
You
Second Part of
Course
Grading Table
Class Calendar
Administrative Matters:
Main
Class Website: https://culearn.colorado.edu/webct/entryPageIns.
dowebct
Class Meeting:
Section: 880
Time: 12:30-1:45 Tue,Thu, ATLAS 1B25 and Lab 5-6:30 Thu, ATLAS 1B25
Instructor: Gary McClelland
D347C
Muenzinger, 303-492-8617
Office Hours: 1:10-3, Monday
email: gary.mcclelland@colordo.edu
WWW URL:
http://psych.colorado.edu/~mcclella
Teaching Assistant: Heather Coulter
Muenzinger D351D
email: Heather.Coulter@Colorado.edu
Office
Hours: 2-3, Thursday
Textbook: McClelland, G.H.
(2000). Seeing
Statistics.
Duxbury Press.
(online and free)
Goals of the Course
|
Making the Mastery Exam System Work for
You
You may take the Mastery Exam
again if you fail it in order to pass Part I. However, you
only have one shot at each Quiz and Homework assignment.
This system is designed to put less pressure on you and to
let you spend your time on learning rather than on worrying
about your grades. Your letter grade is determined by the
amount of work you do in Part II and is not affected by your
score on the Mastery Exam, so long as you pass it. However, the better
you do on the mastery exam, the easier Part II of the course is likely to be.
However, don't treat the Mastery Exam like a
typical midterm or final. Cramming the night before by
studying your notes and the text book will not work. The
focus of this course is on learning by doing. The Exam will
evaluate your ability to do statistics. The homework
assignments and the quizzes are designed to give you
feedback on your progress and to give you practice on the
kinds of questions you will be expected to answer on the
Mastery Exam.
If you are getting low quiz or homework
scores, or are not understanding the lab or class material,
or are feeling lost in any way, see your instructors
IMMEDIATELY!! The material we cover in Part I is usually
covered in a full semester in an old-style statistics
course. You will also need to understand and be able to
use this material in order to complete the second part of
the course. Don't let yourself fall
behind.
Second Part of
Course
The purpose of Part II is to
give you experience in applying the statistical concepts and
tools you learned in Part I. You will be able to gain
practical experience in all phases of the research process:
posing questions, designing a statistical analysis to answer
these questions, performing the statistical analyses,
interpreting results, reviewing other's research papers, and
revising your manuscripts to produce an excellent final
product. Below is a brief description of the various
activities; more details will be provided in a subsequent
syllabus for Part II.
Lectures:
I will
present the details of each of the activities described
below, discuss other aspects of the research process such as
publication, and hold workshops on the various activities
and specific statistical techniques that might be of
interest to certain students.
Research Manuscript
and Article:
You will need to write your own
APA-style research manuscript and article. To do this, you
can explore a number of survey datasets that have already
been collected and that I will provide for you.
Alternatively, you can use data that is being collected in a
lab you are working in or that you yourself have collected.
You will gain practical experience in design, analysis, and
interpretation of a series of research studies. For a C, you
need to answer only one research question and use only one
type of statistical analysis. To get an A, you must answer
at least three research questions. These research questions
should be on the same topic. This is often how research
articles are written - a particular result inspires a
new set of questions, which are then investigated in turn.
Your analyses, results,
and background research must be written up in an APA-style
manuscript, complete with title page, abstract,
Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and References
sections. Your manuscript will be peer-reviewed by two of
your colleagues as well as the TA for the course. They will
provide detailed feedback to you so that you can revise your
manuscript and turn it in as a finished product, the
Research Article. Please note: the manuscript SHOULD NOT be
considered a rough-draft. It should be close to a final
product. If you submit a rough draft that is incomplete,
poorly organized, etc., the feedback you receive will suffer,
which will translate into a poor finished
product.
The Research Article that you turn in will
be a polished and quality piece of work, meaning that: a)
your statistical analyses are appropriate, as are the
conclusions you draw from them; b) the meaning of each
sentence in your paper is clear; c) you say what you need to
say but no more; d) your logic and conclusions make sense
and are easy to follow; and e) you follow APA style exactly.
Peer Review:
A central aspect of
scientific research is peer review. Other scientists
evaluate the quality of articles submitted for publication.
We will simulate the publication process by having you be a
journal reviewer of two other students' Research Articles.
You should endeavor to provide detailed feedback to the
author, letting them know precisely (e.g., page
number, paragraph, and sentence) what is unclear, needs to
be reworked, is confusing, or wrong. All aspects of the
manuscript, from APA style to clarity of presentation to
statistical analyses to conclusions drawn from them are fair
game. Your job is not to provide a grade for the author;
rather, it is to provide detailed feedback that will help
the author to revise their paper into an excellent, clear,
articulate article.
Scientific
Presentation:
An important aspect of the scientific
process is disseminating what you have learned to the wider
scientific community. It is not enough to have discovered
something interesting in your research; equally important is
explaining it to others through presentations and
publications. In this activity, you will give a short (~ 10
min.), in-class presentation about your project in the style
of presentations at scientific conventions.
Grading
For the most part,
you determine your own grade in this course by choosing how
much work that you decide to do. The table below gives the
activities required for a given grade. This does not mean
however that you can turn in sub-par work and receive a
certain grade. If you are going for an "A," it is expected
that you do "A" quality work in your presentation, peer
review, and (especially) your research article (your
research manuscript does not count towards your grade unless
you are going for a "C"; however, it is very much in your
self-interest to submit a quality manuscript
in order to get back useful feedback). If any of the three
activities do not meet this expectation, your final grade
will be lowered by a half step, with research article
counting double. For example, if you are going for an A,
your base grade starts at an A and I fully expect that this
will be your final grade. If however your peer review is
only B quality, your final grade will be lowered a step to
an A-; if C quality, your final grade will be a B+. Research
articles are doubly important, so if it is B quality, your
final grade would be a B+; if C quality, it would be a B-,
and so forth. Truly fantastic work will merit similar
increases in grades.
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Disabilities, Learning Difficulties, and Related
Problems
The flexible structure and
small size of this course makes it easy to accommodate a
wide range of learning-related difficulties. Please send me
an email or talk to me in office hours about any special
problems you may have.
Religious and Other
Absences
Similarly, the flexible
structure and small size of this course makes it easy to
accommodate absences for religious observances, medical appointments, or similar
needs. Please send me email or talk to me in office hours
about any absences you will need and we will make
arrangements.
Students are expected to know and comply with
University policies described by these
links:
Responsible
Computer Use
Classroom and Course-related Behavior
Honor
Code
Index of
all University Policies
Class Calendar
Aug 24
- CLASS 1 - Introductions, syllabus, and overview
Aug 26 - CLASS 2 - Basic concepts. Have read SS Ch. 0
& 1
Aug 26 - LAB 1 - Basics of
R.
Aug 31- CLASS 3 - Descriptive
statistics. Have read SS Ch. 2-5. HW #1 (basic
concepts) due.
Sep 2 - CLASS 4 - Sampling
distributions. Have read SS Ch. 6-8.
Sep 2
- LAB 2 - Descriptive statistics in R.
Sep 7
- CLASS 5- Sampling distributions part II & statistical
decisions. HW #2 (descriptive stats) due
Sep 9
- CLASS 6 - 1-sample, indep., and paired t-tests.
Have read SS Ch. 9 & 10.
Sep 9 - LAB
3 - t-tests and graphs in R.
Sep 14 -
CLASS 7 - Research design. HW #3 (means and t-tests)
due. Quiz 1.
Sep 16 - CLASS 8 -
Correlation and regression. Have read SS Ch. 12.
Sep 16- LAB 4 - Correlation and regression with
graphs in R.
Sep 21- CLASS 9 - Regression.
HW #4 (correlation and regression) due.
Sep 23
- CLASS 10 - Regression practicals.
Sep 23 -
LAB 5 - Correlation and regression with graphs in
R
Sep 28 - CLASS 11 - Multiple regression part
I. HW #5 (Regression) due.
Sep 30 - CLASS 12
- Multiple regression part II in R.
Sep 30 - LAB 6
- Multiple regression in R.
Oct 5- CLASS 13 -
Multiple regression: interactions. HW #6 (multiple
regression II) due. Quiz 2.
Optional reading: http://
www.jerrydallal.com/LHSP/reginter.htm
Oct 7
- CLASS 14 - ANOVA from a regression
standpoint.
Oct 7 - LAB 7 - ANOVA and interactions
in R.
Oct 12 - CLASS 15 - Factorial ANOVA
using regression. HW #7 (interactions & ANOVA)
due.
Oct 14- CLASS 16 - Factorial ANOVA part
II.
Oct 14- LAB 8 - Factorial ANOVA in R.
Oct 19- CLASS 17 - Factorial ANOVA part III.
Have read SS Ch. 8-10. HW #8(ANOVA)
due.
Oct 21 - CLASS 18 - Logistic regression.
Oct 21 - LAB 9 - Find articles online. APA
bibliographic format.
Oct 26 - CLASS
19 - Review for Mastery Exam
Oct 28- CLASS 20 -
Mastery Exam - Closed-book portion.
Oct 28 - LAB
10 - Mastery Exam - Open book portion.
Mar 23 - Fall Break - no
classes
Mar 25 - Spring Break - no classes
Nov 2-
CLASS 21 - Mastery Exam results. Overview of Part
II
Nov 4 - CLASS 22 - Work on Research Project
Nov 4 - LAB 11 - Coding
data in R. Work on Research Project
Nov 9 - CLASS 23 - Work on
Research Project
Nov 11 - CLASS 24 - Work on
Research Project
Nov 11 - LAB 12 - Work on
Research Project
Nov 16 - CLASS 25 - Work on
Research Project
Nov 18 - CLASS 26 - Work on
Research Project
Nov 18 - LAB 13 - Work on
Research Project
Nov 23 - Fall Break - no
classes
Nov 25 - Spring Break - no classes
Nov 30 - CLASS 27 - Work on Research Project
Dec 2 - CLASS 28 -
Research Project Presentations. Last possible day to
turn in Research Manuscript.
Dec 2 - LAB
14 - Research Project Presentations.
-
Dec 7 - Research Project Presentations.
Dec 9
- CLASS 30 - Research Project Presentations. Last
possible day to turn in Peer Reviews.
Dec 9
- LAB 15 - Research Project Presentations.
Dec 11 - REVISED RESEARCH ARTICLE &
RESPONSE TO COMMENTS DUE BY
5PM
NOTE: These course materials are a collaboraive
effor between Gary McClelland and Matt Keller. Gary developed the basic structure for this course
and refined it over the years. Matt Keller has recently refined and improved the structure. And now
Gary is hoping not to mess it up too much.
Comments to: gary.mcclelland@colorado.edu
Last
Modified:
Mon, Aug 23, 2010, 1:17 pm