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PSY 769: Intermediate Statistics in the Social Sciences
Spring 2023
Section 03, Registration Number 41868
Section 04, Registration Number 41867
Professor Keith A. Markus
Time:
Section 03: Tuesdays 6:00-8:00 PM
Section 04: Thursdays 6:00-8:00 PM
Room:
Section 03 & 04: L2.72.05NB
Course Description
"The primary purpose of the course is to
educate students about basic [statistical] theories and
techniques used in the behavioral sciences. The instructor
will briefly review information typically covered in
undergraduate statistics, and then introduce more advanced
statistical techniques. Upon completion, the student is
expected to understand the theoretical underpinnings for the
various statistical techniques and the assumptions that data
must meet to validly use these statistics. The student will
also gain an introduction to computer-based statistical
analysis. 30 hours. 3 credits." (from
Graduate Bulletin)
Many students enter the course several
years after having taken an undergraduate statistics
course. Moreover, new material often precedes review
material in order of logical development. As a
consequence, we will "briefly review" introductory material
as if it were new material and do so for most of the
semester. Nonetheless, from the start, we will cover
most of the material in more depth than a typical
undergraduate course. We will cover a number of topics
not included in a typical introductory course.
Computer based statistical analysis will
largely be limited to the use of spreadsheets. This is
because we offer another course entirely devoted to the
topic of computer based statistical analysis (PSY
737). I highly recommend that course to both thesis
and non-thesis students. Other advantages to
spreadsheets include the fact that you can easily look at
the formulas to know exactly what they are doing,
spreadsheets can be tailored to the course, kept simple and
focused, and thanks to open source office suites like Libre
Office, you can take them wherever you go without any need
for licenses to use commercial software.
Course
Objectives
1. Students will learn to view psychological phenomena from
the perspective of quantitative stochastic processes.
2. Students will develop linguistic competence in
interpreting, describing, and critically evaluating basic
statistical data.
3. Students will gain experience reasoning from and about
numerical data.
Note: It is not possible for this
course to cover all of the statistics that you might need
for a thesis. If you plan on doing a thesis, prepare
yourself for the fact that your data analysis will likely
involve at least some statistics not covered in this
course. See Blackboard for a document comparing what
it covered in this course to other benchmarks.
Diversity and Inclusion
Modern statistics are a cultural artifact tracing back to
19th century Europe but the field has grown to embrace
scholarly contributions from around the world.
Statistics has some ugly episodes in its history, including
historical figures involved in eugenics who also made
lasting contributions to the development of
statistics. Nonetheless, progress in statistics is
driven in large part by responding to existing needs and
unsolved problems. As such, the field benefits from
contributions from people who bring diverse perspectives and
experiences to statistics. Most of you are psychology
students seeking careers in psychology that will not involve
becoming professional statisticians. Nonetheless, much
large scale research in psychology involves collaboration
between researchers with expertise in statistics and
methodology one the one hand and researchers with expertise
in a particular topic in psychology on the other hand.
The better you understand statistics, the better you can
contribute to such teams and communicate with others in your
field. My intention is for this course to speak to you
and empower you in your career no matter your background or
milieu. Moreover, statistical methods play a central
role documenting injustice or discrimination and in crafting
legislation intended to combat them. Looking beyond
your profession and career, I hope that a richer
understanding of statistical methods will be valuable to you
as an informed citizen and participant in democratic
governance seeking to leave the world better than you found
it.
Required Background Knowledge
This course assumes familiarity with basic math and
algebra. Please take the Basic Math and Algebra
Screening Test on Blackboard. Let me know if the
questions are unfamiliar to you or if you find the test
difficult. If so, it may be wise to talk to your
program head about taking an undergraduate math course this
term and registering for this course in a later term.
Required Reading
Bachman, R & Paternoster, R. (2016).
Statistical methods for criminology and criminal justice (5th
ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. (Caution: If you rent, make sure
that the rental term reaches through finals week.)
Please make sure that you get the 5th edition. A number
of typographical errors have been corrected and some material
has been changed.
Software
I strongly recommend that students
install the free office suite Libre Office and use the Calc spreadsheet program (https://www.libreoffice.org/).
I will also post Microsoft Excel versions of the spreadsheets
but Microsoft is breaking backward compatibility and some of
the features used in the course no longer work in Excel
(although they did when I created them). The programs
are very similar, but there are some important differences.
Such spreadsheet software remains a popular
choice for data entry even
among researchers who use more specialized statistical
software for data analysis (the topic of PSY 737). However,
research shows that specialized statistical software can be more confusing
than enlightening when learning
fundamental
statistical concepts.
Excel/Calc offer a
simple computing environment for working with
data ideal for learning and gaining confidence
with fundamental
statistical
concepts. (Mac
users: You can open
both Excel and Calc files
using the Mac version of
LibreOffice. However
the spreadsheets will not
work in Numbers.)
Additional optional software will be explained on
Blackboard. (You will need a computer that is capable of
running locally installed software to complete the
assignments. A digital device that relies entirely on
web applications will not suffice.)
Internet Connection and Online Course
Software
Students will need to be able to download files from
Blackboard onto a computer with spreadsheet software
installed. Blackboard is accessible through the CUNY
portal: www.cuny.edu and
works best with the Mozilla
Firefox browser.
Class Time
The course design is a "flipped
classroom". I will not lecture. Instead, I will
post instructional materials associated with each week on
Blackboard for you to use outside of class. We will
use class time to (a) answer your questions, (b) work on
practice problems, (c) review the quizzes and T&F
questions from the presentation slides, and (d) other
activities to help reinforce learning. (However, you
will still need to devote time outside of class to
completing assignments.)
Do the reading before the corresponding class. If you
have questions about the reading, bring them to class and I
will try to answer them there (ideally by posting them to a
discussion board on Blackbaord). I want to leave some
flexibility to use the class time in the manner you will find
most useful. Note, most students find it helpful to read
some materials more than once. Only the first time
through the reading need precede the corresponding class.
Asking effective questions: Try to
formulate questions in an effective manner. If you ask
me to explain some topic, especially a fairly general one, I
will probably give a brief overview and refer you to the
appropriate passages from the textbook or instructional
materials. This is not an effective question (unless
that is what you are after) because you are not giving me
clear information about what you do not understand, leaving me
to guess or just duplicate what you can find elsewhere.
If something was unclear to you there, it is likely to be
equally unclear in my answer. Instead, try to be as
specific as you can about what you do not understand. If
you do not understand a particular term, tell me what you find
confusing about it. If you do not understand a
particular sentence or paragraph, cite the passage and explain
why it does not make sense to you. If you are confused
about a particular statistical analysis, explain the step that
you find unclear and what you think that the possible options
are. The more context and detail that you can give me,
the better the chances that I can give an answer that is
helpful and informative to you and to other students in the
class with similar questions.
If your question is related to an assignment,
phrase your question in a way that does not involve any
spoilers for other students working on the same
assignment. If in doubt, email me privately rather than
directly posting on a discussion board. I will then
paste an anonymized and, if necessary, edited version of the
question and answer to the discussion board.
Feel free to search for answers to your
questions on the Web. However, please do not attempt to
post questions related to the course using online fora like
Cross Validated or Stack Overflow. These are precious
resources maintained by busy people donating their time and
expertise. It is not appropriate to lean on them for
questions related to a course when you have ready access to an
instructor. Save that for later in your career when you
are no longer a student. (Also, you will probably get a
terse answer that either refers you to introductory material
or assumes more background knowledge than you currently
have.) You should be able to complete assignments based
on the provided course materials but if you make use of
additional resources be sure to credit them in what you turn
in (see Academic Integrity).
Everyone from me to your class mates are
depending on you to ask questions when you have them. If
you have a question, you can be fairly sure that others have
the same question. Your question is not a "dumb
question" but asking the question is the smartest thing that
you can do. Everyone else will appreciate your having
asked the question.
Non-Class Time
I recommend that you begin each week by reading the chapter
once through for the first time. From there, move to the
online instructional materials. These are organized into
subtopics which you can often explore in an order of your
choosing. (My videos often provide an overview of the
week's material.) In many ways, learning statistics is
like learning to skate board, ride a bike, or bake a cake: You
can read about it from a book but you really need to practice
to develop any skill. So, I strongly recommend taking
time to play around with the spreadsheet calculators provided
each week, plugging in different numbers and trying things out
for yourself. Instructional materials primarily include:
(a) pdf handouts, (b) spreadsheet workbooks and (c)
videos. I will also provide links each week to StatQuest
videos on related topics. Finish the first reading of
the chapter and the instructional materials before class
meets. Use what you learn to complete the Application
assignment and to formulate questions to ask in class.
After class, I recommend completing the weekly quiz before the
start of the next week, to get it out of the way. I
recommend completing at least one or two quests prior to
taking the quiz because these are an excellent way to check
your understanding of the material and to gain a deeper
understanding of it. Also, Quests take time and you do
not want them to pile up until the week before the deadline.
Academic Integrity Attestation
This is a non-graded course requirement. No other
assignments will be accepted for credit unless this form is
completed, signed and submitted. The form is available
on the Blackbaord course and attests that you understand the
principles of academic integrity and will abide by them in
completing all course work involved in this course. (See
further information near the end of the syllabus.)
Application Assignments
Weekly application assignments will appear on Blackboard in
the folder for each week. See Schedule
for due dates. These will be relatively short
assignments applying the material for that week. You can
complete them in a word processing program (or simple text
editor) and upload the file to Blackboard using the Blackboard
Assignment Tool in the same location. PDF (portable
document format) files are great because special characters
are stored internally. I can probably also open RTF
(rich text format), ODT (open document text), DOC (old
Microsoft Office format) and DOCX (new Microsoft Office
format) but these are riskier (e.g., if you use a font I do
not have). If I cannot open a file, or it appears
jumbled, I will accept it as on time but send an email request
for a PDF file. Try to keep up with these and not fall
behind but I will accept late Application Assignments up until
the Quest deadline for each section of the course.
Note: Students sometimes become overconfident
and try to complete Application Assignments before they do the
reading. This is a bad idea. We will cover things
you did not learn in your undergraduate statistics
course. If you attempt the Application Assignments
without doing the reading, you will invariably do a face
plant. That will mean that I have to expend a lot of
time and effort giving you written feedback about what you did
wrong, even though by the time I grade the assignment, you
will probably have done the reader and figured out what you
did wrong on your own. This will delay me returning
grades and deny you the opportunity to test your understanding
of the reading when you complete the assignment. Many of
the assignments include extensive cautions against the kinds
of mistakes people make when they have not done the
reading. Always go back and check your answer against
these cautions before you submit your answer.
Quizzes
Weekly quizzes will comprise six questions. When there are two
chapters, there will be three questions from each chapter.
The quizzes will be available on Blackboard in the folder for
the week that they test (not the week that they are due!).
See Schedule for due dates. Your total
quiz grade is equal to the mean proportion correct across all
quizzes after dropping the two lowest quiz grades. See
Blackboard for a document providing a more detailed description
of quiz items. You only get one try at a quiz. So, I
strongly recommend completing all other assignments and
mastering the material through further study before taking the
quiz. You are allowed to use your notes, textbook, and
other instructional a materials while taking a quiz, but they
are not necessary to complete the quiz.
Note: We will go over quizzes in class after they are
due. As a result, there can be no late quizzes. This
will be a hard and fast deadline because delays in going over
the quizzes are very disruptive to other students. If you
miss a quiz for some reason, it will be counted toward the two
lowest grades that you can drop. If you miss three or more
quizzes, the zero grade will count toward your course
grade. So, stay on top of the deadlines and be sure to
complete quizzes before the deadline (see schedule for specific
times of day and dates). Caution: I discourage waiting
until the last minute because if you have not submitted the quiz
by the deadline according to Blackboard's internal clock, you
will be prevented from ever submitting it even if you have
answered all the questions. Leave yourself time for
technical difficulties with Blackboard or your internet
connection (also Blackboard can sometimes go down unexpectedly).
Grading
Your final grade comprises your Application
Assignment grade, your Quiz grade, your Quest grade for each
of the three parts of the course, and your Power Up. The
Application grade counts each of the 12 application
assignments as 1 point and equals the sum of these divided by
12. The Quiz grade counts each quiz as 1 point, drops
the 2 lowest, and divides the sum by 10. The Quest grade
for each part is the number of quests that you (successfully)
completed (again, not just turned in with answers). You
are required to complete 15 quests for Part 1 and for Part 2,
and 12 quests for Part 3. Your final grade is based on
the proportion of the required quests completed in each
part. Specifically, I calculate min(N, F) / N where N is
the minimum required quests (15 or 12) and F the number of
completed quests for that part of the course. The Power
Up is calculated based on extra quests beyond those
required. Here, I calculate max(0, F - N) for each part
of the course, add them together, and divide by 14. As
such, you can never loose points with a negative Power Up, it
will never fall below zero. The Power Up reflects the
extra quests you complete beyond those required for each part
of the course (not by individual chapter).
Caution: All of this is contingent on your
submitting the required Academic Integrity Attestation
form. I will not accept assignments or quizzes for a
grade without a signed form.
Your Numeric Course Grade is calculated from
the above scores as follows: (.25 * Application
Assignments) + (.25 * Quizzes) + (.17 * Part 1 Quests) + (.17
* Part 2 Quests) + (.16 * Part 3 Quests) + (.05 * Power
Up). In words, Applications and Quizzes both count 25%
of your grade, required Quests count for 50%, and you can earn
up to 5% extra credit by completing extra quests. There
will be no other extra credit options beyond Power Ups.
I will use the following chart
to convert Numeric Course Grades to Letter Course
Grades. On the proportion (not percent) scale, I will
round .xx5 and above up and anything below .xx5 down.
Letter Grade | Numeric Course Grade |
A | .95-1.00 |
A- | .90-.94 |
B+ | .85-.89 |
B | .80-.84 |
B- | .75-.79 |
C+ | .70-.74 |
C | .65-.69 |
C- | .60-.64 |
F | .00-.59 |
Contact Information: (It usually works best to email me.)
Office
Hours: By appointment. I will dedicate a
Blackboard Discussion Board to questions and check it several
times a week. For anything that you do not want to share
with other students, contact me by email. I can answer
many questions quickly by email (I will post an anonymous
version to Blackboard for course-related questions.)
Office:
Room 10.65.04, 524 W59
Street. (Due to the ongoing pandemic, I will generally
only be on campus to check my mailbox twice a week and for a
minimal amount of time.)
Phone: 212-237-8784 Please do not leave messages at this number. (I do not check voice mail when off campus and I no longer receive voicemail as email for some reason.)
Email: KMarkus@aol.com
Week |
Section 03 Tuesdays Meeting Dates |
Section 04 Thursdays Meeting Dates |
Assignments All assignments due by 5:PM on the date listed in the meeting dates column unless otherwise noted. |
Reading |
Topics |
1 |
1/31 |
1/26 |
Ch 1 (Recommended, Appendix A) |
Why am I here? What is this class about?
Syllabus. Statistical inference and Sampling. |
|
2 |
2/7 |
2/2 |
Week 1 Quiz Week 1 Application Week 2 Application |
Ch2-3 |
Levels of measurement, Distributions |
3 |
2/14 |
2/9 |
Week 2 Quiz Week 3 Application |
Ch 4-5 |
Central tendency, Dispersion |
4 |
2/28 (Class Does Not Meet 2/21, Monday Schedule) |
2/16 |
Week 3 Quiz Chapters 1-5 Quests Deadline (and late Application Assignments for Part I) |
|
|
5 |
3/7 |
2/23 |
Week 5 Application |
Ch 6 |
Probability, Hypothesis Testing |
6 |
3/14 |
3/2 |
Week 5 Quiz Week 6 Application |
Ch 7 |
Point estimation, Confidence Intervals |
7 |
3/21 |
3/9 |
Week 6 Quiz Week 7 Application |
Ch 8 |
Single group mean and proportion |
8 |
3/28 |
3/16 |
Week 7 Quiz Week 8 Application |
Ch 9 |
Hypotheses and measures of association with categorical data |
9 |
4/4 |
3/23 |
Week 8 Quiz Week 9 Application |
Ch 10 |
Two group mean and proportion |
10 |
4/18 (Class Does Not Meet 4/11) |
3/30 |
Week 9 Quiz Chapters 6-10 Quests Deadline (and late Application Assignments for Part II) |
||
11 |
4/25 |
4/20 (Class Does Not Meet 4/6 or 4/13) |
Week 11 Application |
Ch 11 |
One-way ANOVA |
12 |
5/2 |
4/27 |
Week 11 Quiz Week 12 Application |
Ch 12 |
Bivariate correlation and regression. |
13 |
5/9 |
5/4 |
Week 12 Quiz Week 13 Application |
Ch 13 |
Multiple regression |
14 |
5/16 |
5/11 | Week 13 Quiz Week 14 Application |
Ch 14
(http://statpages.org/logistic.html) |
Logistic regression |
15 (Finals week) |
5/23 (No Class Meeting) |
5/23 (No Class Meeting) |
Week 14 Quiz Chapters 11-14 Quests Deadline (and late Application Assignments for Part III) |
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