Syllabus for Psychology 221A
Design and Measurement
Fall 2009
Lecturer: Sebastien Helie T.A.: Benjamin Turner
Office: 3803 Psychology East 1504 Psychology
Phone: 893‑7909 893-7909
Office Hours: 10:00 - 12:00 Tuesday, or by appointment Mon. – Wed., 12:00 – 1:00pm
Class: Monday – Wednesday, 1:00 – 2:15pm Lab: Friday, 1:15 – 2:30pm
Goal: To develop an understanding of the basic principles of statistical inference.
Prerequisites: At least one course in statistics is required, and at least one course in calculus is strongly recommended.
Evaluation: One final (12/05 -- 100 pts), and 4 (roughly equally spaced) homework assignments (each worth 25 pts).
Text: Hays, W. L. (1994). Statistics, Fifth Edition (Third and Fourth Editions are similar). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Lecture Topics and Recommended Readings:
Week 1 (09/27 – 10/03)
1. Introduction
Hays: Section 0.1
2. Fundamentals of Measurement
Hays: Sections 2.1 – 2.4, 2.10, 2.12
Week 2 (10/04 – 10/10) -- Homework #1
1. Probability and Probability Distributions (discrete and continuous random variables, probability density functions, cumulative distribution functions)
Hays: Sections 1.2 - 1.7, 2.13 - 2.20, 2.22
2. Outline of Hypothesis Testing and Overview of Course
Hays: Section 1.8
Week 3 (10/11 – 10/17)
1. Parameters and Mathematical Expectation
Hays: Sections 4.2, 4.6 - 4.7, 4.10 – 4.13, 4.15, 4.17, Appendix B.1 - B.2
2. Sampling Distributions and Parameter Estimation (method of moments, maximum likelihood, least squares, minimum variance unbiased estimators, consistency)
Hays: Sections 5.4-5.7, 5.9
Week 4 (10/18 – 10/24) -- Homework #2
1. More on distributions and parameter estimation.
2. The Normal Distribution and the Central Limit Theorem
Hays: Sections 6.1-6.3, 6.6-6.10
Week 5 (10/25 – 10/31)
1. Introduction to Hypothesis Testing: The z‑test (including power & confidence intervals)
Hays: Sections 7.1-7.3, 7.5-7.16, 7.18
2. Hypothesis Testing on Means: Unknown Variance (including power, effect size, & confidence intervals)
Hays: Sections 8.1-8.6, 8.11.
Week 6 (11/01 – 11/07) -- Homework #3 IQ.txt data_w.txt
1. Comparing Two Treatments (two sample t-tests for independent samples and for repeated measures)
Hays: Sections 8.7-8.10, 8.16
2. The Binomial Distribution: Tests on Proportions, sign test, test of median
Hays: Sections 3.9-3.11, 3.13-3.16
Week 7 (11/08 – 11/14; Wednesday is a holyday)
1. Hypothesis Testing on Variances: The chi-squared distribution
Hays: Sections 9.1-9.5, 9.7-9.10
2. Testing more than two means: The analysis of variance
Hays: Sections 10.5-10.7, 10.9, 10.12, 10.15-10.17, 10.19-10.20, 11.17
Week 8 (11/15 – 11/21)
1. More on the analysis of variance
2. Categorical data analysis: Chi-Square
Hays: Sections 9.12, 18.1.
Week 9 (11/22 – 11/28)
1. Introduction to Bayesian statistics
2. The Bayes factor
Week 10 (11/29 – 12/05)
1. Study time
2. FINAL