Course Outline

Psychology 2101 YA 2004-2005

Instructor: Michel Bédard, PhD

Office: SN 1013
Phone: 343-8630
Email: michel.bedard@lakeheadu.ca
Office hours: Tuesday 10h00-11h15, Thursday 10h00-11h15 (or by appointment)
Website: http://flash.lakeheadu.ca/~mbedard/

Teaching Assistants:
Name Office Email Office Hours
Kristine Knauff BB0029 klknauff@lakeheadu.ca Wednesday 9:30-11:30
Owen Marks BB0029 ohmarks@lakeheadu.ca Thursday 13:00-15:00
Neil Pascoe BB0029 roeh61@yahoo.com Thursday 9:30-11:30

Lectures: Tuesday, Thursday: 11h30-13h00

Location: RB-1042

Tutorials: Monday: 9:30-10:30; 10:30-11:30 (ATAC 3001)

Tuesday: 8:30-9:30; 9:30-10:30 (BB1051)
Wednesday: 8:30-9:30 (BB1051)

Note: There are no labs the first week of each term or the week following an exam. Attendance
to labs is not mandatory but very highly recommended.

Prerequisite:

Introductory Psychology is a pre-requisite for this course. Mathematics or formal

statistics courses are not required.

Objectives:

1. To allow students to understand and explain to others the basis of statistical

analyses presented in research reports.
2. To prepare students for more advanced courses in statistical and research
methods.
3. To enable students to correctly identify the appropriate statistical methods to
analyze research data, and appropriately compute the statistics.
4. To expand students’ quantitative and analytic thinking skills.
5. To develop a basic proficiency with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
(SPSS) software.

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Hints to succeed in this course:

1. Read the textbook carefully, including the examples, more than once if possible,
before and after the lectures. Don’t fall behind.
2. Write down difficulties you have with the material.
3. Enhance your knowledge and test your comfort with the material by doing the
required assignments, and more.
4. Use the Student Handbook
5. Attend lectures and labs, and ask questions.
6. Study with other students, share lecture notes.
7. Make use of the Instructor and TA’s office hours.
8. Prepare for the exams carefully, and not at the last minute. Although you may
feel you understand the material during the lectures, the testing situation is always
different.
9. Speak to us when problems arise not in April!

Required textbook:

Aron, A. & Aron E.N. (2003). Statistics for Psychology (3rd Edition).

Recommended workbook:

Aron, A. & Aron E.N. (2003). Students’ Guide and Computer Workbook.

Evaluation:

Four non-cumulative in-class exams worth 45% of the final mark (October 14,
November 11, January 27, and March 3).

Two cumulative term exams worth 50% of the final mark (during final exam periods
scheduled by the Registrar).

Weekly assignments worth 5% of the final mark.

About exams:

Out of the 4 in-class exams, your best 3 will count towards the 45% (15% each). You are
expected to write all four exams.

Both term exams scheduled by the Registrar (each worth 25%) will test all the material
covered in the semester in question; the April final will not include material covered
during the Fall semester.

Any missed exam will be assigned a grade of zero. Alternate exam dates will not be
given; plan your schedule, flights, vacations, and all other absences from campus

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 accordingly. Exceptions will be made only for medical or compassionate reasons (both
with written confirmation).

Exams will include multiple-choice, fill-in the blanks, and essay/computation questions.
Students are expected to be familiar with manual computations and SPSS outputs.

About assignments:

Although the assignments are worth only 5% of the final mark they have considerable
value as a tool to be successful in this course. Use the assignments to become familiar
with the material, to keep up with the pace of the lectures, and importantly, as a self-
evaluation tool (if you have difficulties doing the assigned questions you will have
difficulties with the exams).

Weekly assignments are based on book questions from Set I. The answers are given at
the back of the textbook, but you are expected to show your work. The computations for
question numbers that are shaded and boxed ( ) should be completed with SPSS. You
must hand in all assignments to pass this course, at the beginning of each Thursday
class (or in advance).

Calculators:

A simple, inexpensive calculator is strongly recommended, and will be allowed during

exams.

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 Tentative outline*

Week Topics Chapter Assignment (Set I)**

Sep 7 Introduction, --- ---
Sep 14 Basic concepts, displaying data, distributions 1 ---
Sep 21 Central tendency, variability 2 Ch 1: 1,2
Sep 28 The normal distribution (no class on Sep 30) 5 Ch 1: 3,6
Oct 5 z-scores, probability 5 Ch 2: 1,2,6,7
Oct 12 Review, Term Exam I (Oct 14) 1,2,5 Ch 5: 1-6,9
Oct 19 Hypothesis testing 6 ---
Oct 26 Hypothesis testing with means 7 Ch 6: 1-3,5,6
Nov 2 Statistical significance 8 Ch 7: 1,2,4,6,7
Nov 9 Review, Term Exam II (Nov 11) 6-8 Ch 8: 1,2,6a,7a,11
Nov 16 One-sample & dependent means t-tests 9 ---
Nov 23 Independent means t-test 10 Ch 9: 1,2,3,5,6,9
Nov 30 Term review (no class on Dec 2nd) 1,2, 5-10 Ch 10: 1,2,4,5,8a,9a
Dec 7-17 Fall cumulative exam 1,2, 5-10 ---

Jan 4 The analysis of variance, structural model 11,12 ---

Jan 11 ANOVA, multiple comparisons 11,12 Ch 11: 1,2,3
Jan 18 Factorial ANOVA 13 Ch 12: 1,3,7acd,9ab,10ab
Jan 25 Review, Term Exam III (Jan 27) 11-13 Ch 13:1,4,5,8a,9a,10ab,11ab
Feb 1 Chi-square (χ2) 14 ---
Feb 8 Transformations, distribution-free tests 15 Ch 14: 1a,3,5a,7a,8,10ab,11ab,12,ab
Feb 15 Reading week ---
Feb 22 Correlation 3 Ch 15: 1,2,4,9
Mar 1 Review, Term Exam IV (Mar 3) 3,14-15 Ch 3: 1,2,3,4,8
Mar 8 Correlation, regression 3,4 ---
Mar 15 Regression, multiple regression, GLM 4,16 Ch 4: 1,4,6,9
Mar 22 Advanced & epidemiological methods 17 Ch 16: 5,9a
Mar 29 Term review 3-4,11-17 ---
Apr 11-21 Winter cumulative exam 3-4,11-17 ---
* (changes will be made if required and announced in advance, in class)
** Question boxed and shaded ( ) should be completed with SPSS. All assignments are due on the Thursday
before class.

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