Finish suveys, begin basic statistics.
This week we will finish surveys, and begin introductory statistics.
Lecture notes: Statistics notes # 1.
ReadingsStudy for your exam on Wednesday. Go over your notes and the lecture slides - run them and give yourself the lectures to ensure you really understand the materials. Study quides for all exams are on the Home Page of the web site.
Discussion group Assignment
Write the methods and results sections of your paper.
This is an important chance to get feedback on your
paper, so use it!!
You should already have written your introduction and design for Week 8. Now write up your methods, and integrate them with your introduction. This is a lot for a weekly homework assignment – you may not get through all of it – but if you are wise you will use this as an impetus to get the guts of your paper done now, and to get feedback on it in group. For hints on how a final paper looks, go to the Guide for reading articles.
During discussion group you will form dyads and interview each other about your Methods sections.
The interview guide you will use - which is the template you should follow in writing your final draft - is here.
- Who are your research participants? What type of sample is this (e.g., random, convenience, targeted, etc.). What is the n?
- Here / how did you recruit them?
- What are the sampling biases or limitations?
- What was the overall design?
- Was this a measurement or an experimental study?
- “True” experiment or quasi-experiment?
- What were the overall study procedures – generally, how did you put the study together?
- What, step-by-step, did you do with each participant?
- How did you operationally define your Independent Variable: what was your experimental manipulation, what were the experimental v. control groups?
- How did you obtain informed consent? Describe the IRB approval. What other ethical issues may there be (e.g., stressful conditions, deception or placebo groups…), and how did you deal with that?
- How did you operationally define your Dependent Variable(s)? Describe this in terms of your hypothesis, being concrete enough that someone else could get the same numbers you did.
- If you are doing a measurement study your Independent (or predictor) Variable will also be defined in this section.
- Were the measures known to be reliable and valid? How?