This is an introductory course in statistical data analysis and interpretation that is designed primarily for students majoring in psychology.  Its goal is to help you develop the conceptual background and practical skills needed to (a) critically evaluate the statistics you will encounter elsewhere in your coursework (and in your professional life after graduation!) and (b) begin conducting statistical analyses of empirical data on your own (e.g., in your research methods and lab courses, in independent study projects, etc.).

My aim in teaching this course is to help students develop an intuitive understanding of the statistical methods we will learn.  This means going beyond rote memorization of abstract formulae.  It implies developing an appreciation for what the terms in those formulae stand for, and what the results of those formulae tell us about the psychological phenomenon being investigated.  Statistics is an applied branch of mathematics.  As such, the statistics we will learn in this course are best thought of as a means to an end, not an end in themselves.  For psychologists, statistics are important tools that help us better understand human behavior and experience.  In a very real sense, statistics are to psychology what microscopes are to biology.  Thus, as we learn about various statistical techniques and procedures, it is important always to keep one eye focused on the research question we are seeking to answer via a statistical analysis of empirical data.  By doing so, I believe that students can acquire a richer, more complete appreciation for the meaning of the statistical principles we will be studying together.

By the end of this course, you should be able to (a) interpret the meaning of basic statistical analyses described in published research reports and elsewhere, (b) independently analyze data using the various techniques we will study, and (c) understand the conceptual foundation, appropriate use, and limitations of the statistical methods covered in the course.

Thus, the four specific learning objectives for this course are as follows:

The one piece of equipment that is essential for this course is an appropriate hand calculator.  An "appropriate" calculator is one that can compute (a) sums and (b) sums of squares simultaneously.  That is, you should be able to enter a series of numbers (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), and then press either one or two other buttons to obtain both the sum of those numbers (15) and the sum of the squares of those numbers (55).  This is very important!  These are operations that you will need to perform many times on nearly every homework assignment as well as on the exams, and it is critical that you be able to perform them quickly and accurately on your calculator.  Every calculator can compute sums.  But not all of them can compute sums of squares in the manner just described.  If you already own a calculator and do not know whether it can perform the sum-of-squares function, consult your owner's manual (it many not be obvious from looking at the calculator itself - check online for a manual if you've lost track of yours).  If your calculator has a button labeled "∑" (the capital Greek letter sigma) or "STAT", or was sold specifically as a "statistical" calculator, it probably can perform this operation.  But you need to be sure.  If you do not own a calculator, or you own one that cannot perform this function, I recommend that you buy an inexpensive Texas Instruments scientific calculator, such as the TI-30Xa.  This simple calculator can be found in may stores, and is usually stocked by Loyola's bookstore.  It costs about $15.  In the first week of the semester I will demonstrate how to compute sums and sums of squares on the TI-30Xa.  If you want a slightly fancier calculator, you might consider the TI-30X IIS.  It costs only a few dollars more (about $20).  But that calculator is really more than you absolutely need.  I recommend that you stay away from the TI-36X.  It is poorly designed, with keys that are very easily confused.  I also recommend that you do not buy a TI-83 or TI-84 graphing calculator.  These are very sophisticated calculators that are popular in many math courses, but they are MUCH more complicated than the other two calculators.  They are absolutely not worth the money ($115-$130) just for this course.  If you already own one of these graphing calculators, but are not proficient in using it, I again recommend that you consider buying the less-complicated TI-30Xa or TI-30X IIS.  You will likely find these much easier to operate.  Although it may seem counter-intuitive, using an unnecessarily sophisticated calculator can often be a nagging source of frustration and error.  Eliminating that frustration is well worth the small expense of a new calculator. 

Woody Allen, the great 20th-century American philosopher/film-maker, is reported to have said that "eighty percent of success is showing up" (Peters & Waterman, 1982).  Nowhere is this more true than in this course.  Class attendance is essential, and can significantly affect your course grade.  My experience in teaching this course for many years is that students who attend class every day end up with much better grades than those who skip even a few classes.  More than any other course in Psychology, this one follows a "building-block" model -- concepts presented early in the semester are critical building blocks needed to understand concepts encountered later on, and all later lectures build on those that precede them.  Students with poor attendance records often miss key concepts discussed in their absence.  Later those same students become completely lost when the material requires that they apply the missed concepts in new ways.  If you make a commitment to attend every class, you will be rewarded both with a better grade and with a better understanding of statistical data analysis and interpretation!

The weekly reading assignments are listed in the table below.  They all come from the textbook by Witte & Witte (2014).  A complete reference for the textbook appears at the end of this paragraph.  It is available in Loyola's bookstore, on Amazon, and elsewhere.  There is also an eBook version available directly from the publisher for less than 1/3 the hard copy price.  BUT BEFORE YOU JUMP FOR THE CHEAPER eBOOK VERSION, PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING: The book contains a number of important tables that we will use frequently in class, beginning in Week 4.  It is therefore important that you be able to bring your book with you to class.  So, consider buying the eBook version only if you (a) have a portable eReader, and (b) can use it to highlight text and add notes.  I do not recommend either buying or renting a used book.  There are three reasons for this.  The first has to do with highlighting.  Used statistics books too often have been heavily highlighted by their previous owners.  This makes it hard for you to do your own highlighting (which you definitely should do yourself--deciding what to highlight and what not to highlight is an important part of the learning process).  Even worse, if the book is rented, you are prohibited from highlighting, again robbing you of an important learning exercise.  The second reason is that rented books must be returned at the end of the semester.  However, this is one book that you will want to hang onto for use in at least two other courses you are likely to take (this is explained more fully below).  Finally, (and this is a pet peeve of mine, so you can ignore it if you want) neither the authors nor the publisher receive any money--so get no reward for their efforts--from the sale or rental of used books.  Their rewards come only from the sale of new books (whether hard copy or electronic).  The sale and rental of used books forces authors and publishers to charge more for new books in order to stay in business, and to come out with more frequent revisions and new editions of those books, which otherwise might be unnecessary.  New books have gotten very expensive primarily because of the existence of the used book trade!  'nuf said.

Witte, R. S., & Witte, J. S. (2014).  Statistics (10th ed.).  Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.  [ISBN 978-1-118-45053-6]

• First, you will get much more out of the lectures if you read each assigned chapter BEFORE it is covered in class.  It is not essential that you understand everything on this first reading.  What is essential is that you (a) try to understand it, (b) get a complete picture of exactly what material is covered in the chapter, and (c) identify those concepts in each chapter that seem hardest to understand (these may be different for different students).  A pattern that I have observed consistently over many years of teaching this course is that students who read the assignments in advance ask better questions during class, and integrate more effectively the content of the lectures with what is presented in the textbook.  As a result, they learn the material better, find the homework easier to do, and perform better on the exams.

• Second, after you complete PSYC 304 (this course), you will likely want to enroll in PSYC 306, Research Methods, and then a semester or two after that you will probably take a psychology lab course (e.g., PSYC 315, PSYC 318, or PSYC 321).  In each of these subsequent courses you will be working with real data, and you will be called upon to conduct some kind of statistically analysis of those data.  When this happens, it will be very useful to have at your fingertips your trusty old stats book.  You can, of course, always borrow someone else's book in those courses, or maybe check one out of the library.  But students in these advanced courses generally find that their analyses go more smoothly when they have at hand the familiar statistics book they used in PSYC 304.  So, I recommend that you hold on to your statistics book for two or three semesters after completing this course.  You will be glad that you did.

(1)	Show all of your work!  You will get full credit for answers only if you show all of the computations that produced them.  If it turns out that your final answer to a problem is incorrect, it may still be possible to get partial credit if some portions of it are done correctly.  However, it is possible to get partial credit only if you have shown all of your work, so that all of the intermediate steps can be easily traced.
(2)	Neatness counts!  If you show all of your work, but it is illegible, or it is presented in a disorganized fashion that cannot be followed easily, then again it is difficult to assign partial credit.  In the spirit of neatness, please adhere to the following rules: All homework should be done on lined graph paper (but not logarithmic paper).  Homework that is not done on graph paper will not be accepted.  Graph paper purchased in the bookstore generally works best.  In a pinch, however, you can print blank sheets of graph paper from the course website on Sakai. Use only the front side of the page, and number the pages consecutively. Be sure to write down the problem number (and part letter, if any). If a problem has multiple parts (e.g.,  a, b, c, etc.).  Work each part in order, beginning with Part (a). Place your work for each problem below the problem that came before it (never to the right of it).  Thus, Problem 2 should appear below Problem 1, and Part (b) should appear below Part (a). Spread out your work vertically leaving plenty of extra space between problems and parts of problems. Construct all tables so that columns of numbers are neat, vertical, and evenly spaced.  Use the lines on the graph paper as a guide.  All columns should be clearly labeled with column headings. Construct all graphs using the lines on the graph paper as a guide.  All lines should be drawn with a straight-edge.  Be sure to label each axis clearly and completely. Double-underline or circle your final answer to each problem (if it is a single numerical result) so that it can be easily identified. Staple the pages together before turning them in, and make sure they are in proper numerical sequence.  Paper clips don't work well for this purpose, as they too easily get tangled with one another and are pulled off.
(3)	Because homework solutions will be posted automatically right after the homework is due, I cannot accept late homework.  If you are unable to turn in a homework by the due date, you will receive a 0 for that homework.  If you have trouble with a homework problem, please please please come see me during my office hours so that I can help you get the assignment completed and turned in on time.  That's what my office hours are for!
(4)	Seeking Help If you find that you need help with the homework, I strongly urge you to see me either before class or during my office hours.  I will do my very best to help you over the rough spots.  I am always available during office hours, and I will make it a point to be available in the classroom (or just outside) 15 minutes before the start of each class. Seeking help from a classmate can also be beneficial, but only if it is obtained in very small doses, and only if you are willing to test yourself honestly afterwards (see below about testing yourself).  If you obtain help in more than very small doses, you are at serious risk of overdosing--which you probably will not realize until after the next exam, by which time it will be way too late.  If you choose to seek help from a classmate, do so responsibly!  Ask for hints, not solutions; approaches, not answers.  Learning comes from discovery, and discovery requires a little bit of time and effort.  It may be faster to ask someone else for the answers, but doing so robs you of the opportunity for discovery and learning.  This is what I mean by overdosing.  When you overdose, you don't learn.  Unfortunately, it is way too easy to overdose on help, which makes asking classmates for help extremely dangerous!  If you do ask a classmate for help, it should be help in learning HOW to solve a problem, not WHAT the solution is.  If you only learn WHAT the solution is, but do not learn HOW to derive it, you will almost certainly fail a similar problem when it appears on an exam, and as a result, you are will likely to end up with a lower grade in the course than you would like! Test Yourself Honestly.  If you have just gotten some help with a problem, make sure the help you received has taught you HOW to solve that problem by trying to solve another problem or two of the same type.  You can usually find another similar problem at the end of the chapter or on the Student Companion Website.  Or, you might ask the person who gave you the help to create a similar problem for you.  Regardless of where the similar problem(s) come from, can you really do them?  Without looking at your notes?  Without looking at the book?  Not even a little peek?  It is a wonderfully adaptive feature of human nature to be overly optimistic.  It helps us get through the worst of times.  But that same optimism it is a significant impediment when it come to accurately assessing our own personal knowledge of statistics, because it allows us to look and a problem and think that we can solve it when in fact we really cannot.  To assess what you really know, you need to get past your overly optimistic self, and the best way to do that is to test yourself by actually working new problems without any help at all!  If you can do them correctly, and get the same answer that is given in the book or on the website, then you can be reasonably confident that you really do know how to solve the problem.  Yea! Getting help is OK; Copying is NOT OK.  It is academically dishonest and a breach of student ethics to copy someone else's homework or exam.  It is equally dishonest and a breach of student ethics to permit someone else to copy your homework or exam.  If it is determined that one student has copied another's homework, in part or in whole, both students will receive a 0 for that homework and that homework score will become one that may not be dropped.  If this happens more than once, or if it happens on an exam even once, both students will be referred to the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences for academic discipline, and both will receive a grade of F in the course.

Homework Assignment 1:  Refreshing Your Basic Math Skills

To do well in this course it is important that you understand basic high school algebra, and that you be able to perform simple algebraic operations quickly and accurately.  You probably mastered these skills at some point in the past, although you may be a little rusty now.  To help you get back in the groove, Homework Assignment 1 is simply to review Appendix A (pp. 489-496) in Witte & Witte (2014), the textbook for the course, and then take a brief test on this material at the beginning of class on Thursday of Week 1.  The test will consist of 40 simple problems like those found in Appendix A.  You will be given only 20 minutes for this test, so you must be able to do these problems quickly and accurately.  A calculator may be used for this test, but most of the problems will be simple enough that you should be able to do them in your head.  An example is (2+3)² = ?  Be sure to complete your review before Thursday of Week 1.  I recommend that you begin by taking the "Pretest" at the beginning of Appendix A (p. 490).  Give yourself no more than 20 minutes to complete it.  Then check your answers--the correct answers are found at the end of the Appendix.  Any errors that you make on this test will help you identify the sections of Appendix A that you should study very carefully (but do at least skim every section, just in case, even if you made no errors related to that section in the Pretest).  Then when you are finished studying Appendix A, take the "Post-test" (p. 495) to make sure that you have learned what you need to know.  You should not be satisfied with anything less than 100% correct on either the Pretest or the Post-test.

• The score you obtain on the math test taken on Thursday of Week 1 will carry the same weight (for grading purposes) as any other homework assignment.  However, unlike the other assignments, the score on Homework Assignment 1 may not be dropped (see below under Grading).

Three exams will be given, each one in two parts: a true/false portion and a computational portion.  The true/false portion will assess your understand of important statistical concepts.  The computational portion will require you to use formulae and other procedures to solve statistical problems.  The exam schedule is as follows:

Your final grade in the course will be based on your performance on 13 homework assignments and three exams, as follows:

Homework Assignments

A total of 15 homework assignments will be given, each worth 100 homework points.  However, your 2 lowest scores from Homeworks 2-15 will be dropped (your score on Homework 1 may not be dropped).  Thus, you can earn a maximum of 13 x 100 = 1300 homework points, and these will count for 40 percent of your overall course grade.

Exams

Three exams will be given.  In combination, these will count for 60 percent of your course grade.  Exam 1will be the shortest of the three, and will count for 16 percent of your grade.  Exam 2 will count for 20 percent.  Exam 3 is the longest one, and will count for 24 percent of your course grade.

Grade Computation

The three exams will each be scored on a percent-correct basis, and so will each be worth a maximum of 100 exam percentage points (see table below).  The percentage of points that you earn (out of 1300) on your best 13 homeworks will also be computed.  These four percentages will be multiplied by the grade weights shown in the table below, and then added together to create your Final Grade Percentage Score (FGPS), as follows:    FGPS = (HW x .40) + (E1 x .16) + (E2 x .20) + (E3 x .24).