PSYCHOLOGICAL MEASUREMENT AND STATISTICS
Psychology 230
Fall 2007
Location:
Meeting Times:
ILC 137
Mondays, 5:30 – 8:15 pm
Instructor:
Office Hours:
Telephone:
E-mail:
Victor A. Shamas, Ph.D.
By Appointment
621-7447 (message phone only)
vas@email.arizona.edu
Textbook:
Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences (7th Ed) by
Study Guide:
FJ Gravetter & LB Wallnau, Thomson/Wadsworth, 2007
http://vas.web.arizona.edu
Course Overview
Learning statistics gives you power: to conduct your own research, to understand the work of others, to read
scientific journals and to make sense of conference presentations. To gain this power, first you have to learn
the language of statistics. In this course, we will decipher statistical formulas and equations so that you can
understand the underlying concepts.
These concepts will become increasingly useful to you if you go onto graduate school or a professional
career. The value of statistics has to do with two important functions: First, statistics allow you to
summarize information about large groups of observations so that you can make sense of the information
and convey it to others. For example, if you know the statistics for a set of scores, you can begin to make
some generalizations about the group from which those scores came. Second, statistics will help you make
judgments and decisions under conditions of uncertainty. Knowing an individual’s previous scores, for
instance, can allow you to make predictions about that individual’s future performance. Through the use of
statistics, you can decide how confident you should be in such predictions. When money or time is at stake,
you want to have as much confidence in your decisions as possible.
Unit 1: Descriptive Statistics
This unit will show you how to use statistics to summarize and describe a group of scores. You will learn
about the different ways to represent the central tendency and the variability of a group, as well as graphical
ways to depict the patterns taking place within the group.
Unit 2: Probability and Hypothesis Testing
In this unit, you will learn how to: a) construct specific research hypotheses, and b) test your hypotheses in
an experimental context. This unit will teach you how to think statistically, and it will lay the groundwork for
the statistical analyses discussed in Unit 3.
Unit 3: Repeated Measures, ANOVA, and Regression
In this unit, we will explore the two procedures that form the basis of virtually every statistical analysis used
in psychological research. The first is analysis of variance, or ANOVA, which allows comparisons to be
made among different groups of scores. The second is linear regression, which analyzes the relationship
between two different variables and makes it possible to predict the score on one of these two variables
based on its relationship to the other.
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Course Structure
This is a lecture/discussion course in which your grade is based entirely on three multiple-choice exams.
Although class attendance will not be taken, you will find attendance to be extremely beneficial in helping you
learn the course material and do well on the exams. Here is how the course will be organized:
 Study Guide. You can find this Microsoft Word file on the instructor’s homepage
(http://vas.web.arizona.edu). The study guide divides the course material into three units and
each unit into 18 lessons. Every lesson includes a set of objectives and key terms. This is the
information you will need to know on the exams. Also, you will find a set of practice tests at the
back of the study guide to help you prepare for the exams.
 Lectures. Each lecture in this course will correspond to a specific chapter in the textbook and the
accompanying lessons in the study guide. Questions and discussion are strongly encouraged. You
should make sure to do the readings before coming to class and to get all of your questions answered
by the time you leave class.
 Assigned Readings. You will need to read about a chapter of the textbook per week. A
comprehensive list of the readings can be found in the Course Schedule section below.
 Exams. You will be taking three multiple-choice exams in this course, one at the end of each unit.
These exams are described in greater detail in the Grading Policy section below.
Grading Policy
Your grade will be based on three multiple-choice exams that will take place on the following dates:
Midterm 1:
Monday, October 1
Midterm 2:
Monday, November 5
Final Exam: Friday, December 7, 5pm (PLEASE NOTE THE TIME CHANGE)
Attendance and punctuality are absolutely required at all three exams. If you miss an exam or arrive more
than 15 minutes late, you will receive an automatic score of zero. There are no makeup exams except in the
event of an extreme and verifiable emergency.
The exams are multiple-choice and each question has four choices. The midterms have 25 questions each
and the final has 50 questions. Each question is worth one point. On the final, 34 questions will cover new
material (Unit 3) and the other 16 will be review from Units 1 and 2.
All of the exams are open-book and closed-notes tests. You will have one hour to complete the midterms
and two hours for the final.
There are a total of 100 points for this course, which are distributed as follows:
Midterm 1:
25 points
Midterm 2:
25 points
Final exam:
50 points
TOTAL
100 points
Your grade will be based on the grade cutoffs shown below:
Grade
Score___
A
85
B
70
C
55
D
40
F
below 40
PLEASE NOTE: There is no extra credit for this course, and no grade of "incomplete" will be
awarded.
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Course Schedule
Each of the lectures in this course pertains to a specific chapter in the textbook and the corresponding
lessons in the study guide. Please complete the assigned readings prior to the lectures. For example, you
should read Chapter 1, “Introduction to Statistics,” and work through Lessons I-1 through I-4 in your study
guide before the first day of class.
8/208/279/39/109/179/2410/110/810/15
10/2210/2911/511/1211/1911/2612/312/7-
Course Introduction
CH.1: Introduction to Statistics
CH.2: Frequency Distributions
LABOR DAY HOLIDAY
CH.3: Central Tendency
CH.4: Variability
CH.5: z-Scores
Unit I Review
CH.6: Probability
MIDTERM 1
CH.7: Probability and Samples
CH.8: Introduction to Hypothesis Testing
CH.9: Introduction to the t Statistic
CH.10: The t Test for Two Independent Samples
Unit II Review
CH.11: The t Test for Two Related Samples
MIDTERM 2
VETERANS DAY HOLIDAY
CH.13: Introduction to Analysis of Variance
CH.15: Two-Factor Analysis of Variance
CH.16: Correlation and Regression
Unit III Review
FINAL EXAM, 5pm (PLEASE NOTE THE TIME CHANGE)
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