Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Multiple Regression Homework

I heard that some of you were all geared up for a take home exam in another class that has now been delayed, and would appreciate getting the Multiple Regression homework sooner, so it is now posted on Portico.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

tips for article reviews

hey guys,

so the TAs have noticed a consistent pattern around a few types of mistakes that are being made on the article reviews. so we collaborated together with Dr. Clements and came up with a list of things, broken down by the section of assignment, that you guys should watch for when you do the rest of your article reviews. hope this helps.

Major Findings:
-Make sure you specify what kind of statistical analysis was used. Because this is a stats class, attending to the analysis used is important. Notice that for future use (not for grading purposes), you will also want to know how people have analyzed these kinds of questions. You will also want to note, for your own use (as well as for inclusion in the flaws and limitation section) whether or not the analysis was the right one to use for the types of data the researchers were analyzing.

Population:
-Make sure you include number of participants, age, ethnicity, and gender. If the authors omitted that information, note that it was not provided. Otherwise, we have no way of knowing that they made the mistake (not you).

Relevance:
-Make sure you tie in how the study relates to your specific research interest. Part of the task of these assignments is to explore a research area so that you will be well positioned to write your masters or dissertation. If you do not read articles that relate to your scholarly interests, this goal cannot be fulfilled. You are not being asked to commit to a particular topic, but your exploration does need to be serious and scholarly, and you must include evidence that you have considered how this work is connected to work you might want to do.

Other things to note:
-Don't bold headings. Italicize them. The only proper use of bold type in APA style is reporting vectors (see p. 140 of the APA Publication Manual).
-Indent paragraphs.
-Margins should be 1 inch all around.
-Don't start sentences with numerals. (e.g. “23 people were studied...” = BAD :( ; “Twenty-three people were studied...” = GOOD :)) See pp. 122-130 of the Publication Manual for the appropriate use of numerals versus written out numbers.

Updated Faculty Recommendations for Readings Posted

The faculty recommendations for articles to read for Article Reviews have been reposted to Portico. There are some additions for some faculty, and some corrections for others.

Wednesday 10/29 at 4 pm in Travis

Monday, October 27, 2008

Table Notes Font Size

Is the font size for table notes the standard 12 pt. font? In the APA manual's table examples (pp. 162-169), the font clearly seems smaller. However, I was unable to find a definitive answer in the APA manual (see p. 170). I noticed the table notes on the lecture slides are the same size font as the font size of its respective table; therefore, I'm assuming that we are to use the standard 12 pt. font size for table notes.

Is this correct? Is decreasing table notes font size the job of the editor?

Thanks.

First Review/Consolidation Session Today!

[this is really from Kris, not me...]

Just a reminder that today's review session will be in Psych 126 at 5pm. Please bring your questions regarding material covered so far as I will not be structuring the review time. I will walk through the computation of linear regression on SPSS using an alternate dataset from what you are using for your second assignment if you are feeling confused about what it is we are covering currently and how to run the analysis.

See you this afternoon.

Kris

Friday, October 24, 2008

Questions About Linear Homework

Hey Guys!
On the table, since it is linear regression and not multiple regression, will we only have step 1? If not, where does step 2 come from? Under model are we supposed to have a 1 and a 2? Also, for the write up, are we supposed to make up a hypothesis? And should we refer to the table, even though in step one we have not made it to the table yet? Also, is there a certain order that the write out has to be in in reporting B, p, R, etc.? On the table are we not supposed to report the weight in pounds, and in the example handout out why does the education variable appear twice? I am not sure that I computed the correlation part right. Are we to do it like the bivariate example or should we do it differently since there are more than 2 variables? I know this is a long question but I have a hunch that there are other people out there wondering about the same things? Thanks so much for taking the time to answer!

Table

I'm pretty confused as to how to make the table.

How do you make the table? As in, do you export it from the SPSS to Word and then make changes, or do I have to make it from scratch in Word? If there is a way to export the data from SPSS into Word in the table form, how do you do that?

Thanks.

"Write Up"

In writing up the results "appropriately for an APA journal" is it okay to follow the outline exactly as given in class or is that plagiarism? I know there is a certain way, so is following exactly as one of the slides in the handout plagiarizing or simply just doing it "the" way? Thanks for your help!!!

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Table size

Does an APA formatted correlation table stretch out the entire page, or the size of table vary according to the amount of numbers we are putting in? Thanks.

Correlations table question

When we're computing the correlations table for question number 3, should we add the variable age into the table or only use the three variables we used in computing our linear regressions?
Thanks,
Andrew

opening spss dataset on portico

hey y'all,
if you're having trouble opening the spss dataset for your homework from portico, make sure when you click on it, you just open it directly instead of save to open. because if it saves, you won't be able to access it once it downloads and saves. if you still can't access it, email Dr. Clements and she will email you the dataset. good luck!

Weekly Review/Consolidation Sessions

The weekly review and consolidation sessions will be at 5 p.m. on Mondays in room 126, starting this Monday (10/27).

My apologies to those of you for whom this time does not work. Unfortunately, there was no time that worked for everyone who wanted to attend.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Regarding Final Project

This is really far from the due date, but I was wondering if I can hand in the final project earlier than Dec 11? I don't think I will be able to hand it in a week ahead, but probably within the week that it's due. Will that be okay with you, Dr. Clements, or will you prefer it later?

Thanks.

What is the F?

Hello. I'm going through my notes and trying to drill Monday's lecture into my head and just came across the "F" in the ANOVA section. Unfortunately, I didn't write any notes on what this actually means and was wondering if there was a quick and easy way of defining it, its significance to the regression and the importance of reporting it? (I looked through both sets of notes and didn't see it, so I apologize if it's a matter of simple oversight).

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Linear Regression Homework

The linear regression home work, the data set, and the pseudonym list have all been posted on Portico.

We will talk more in class about how to write up a regression (beyond just what stats to include) on Thursday.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Content question

For Major Findings, do we only have to report findings that are related to the hypotheses only? The authors of the article I have chosen included data about the scale they used in the research study, do I have to include them in my article review? Thanks.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

APA question - author's name

One of the authors of the article I am reviewing is listed as "Nancy Jo Dunn".  The other authors are listed by their first name, initial, and last name, such as "Nancy J. Peterson" and "Sara D. Bailey".  Since it appears that Nancy Jo may be her first name, and Jo is not her middle name, should I list her as "Dunn, N." or as "Dunn, N. J." ?  Or since it is not hyphened as "Nancy-Jo" should I assume Jo is her middle name?

Question on Article Review

I was reviewing the previous article review that we got back, and saw that I was asked to add in "values" under Major Findings. I was wondering what kind of values are being asked for, because there's no example of that in the empirical article summary outline...

Thanks.

Exam 1 is at the Front Desk

The first exam has been graded. A curve was applied, but it resulted in very small changes to scores. [I curve scores by setting the highest score in the class--in this case, 98--equal to 100. Every person's score is divided by the highest score and then multiplied by 100. So, if someone had made, for instance, a 49 on the exam, the curved score would be 50: (49/98) * 100 = .5 * 100 = 50.]

You may go to the front desk to look at your exam. You may not take the exam with you. However, on each person's exam is taped a list of things to review for the final. This list is based solely on the items missed on this exam.

The indicators of central tendency for this exam are as follows:
Mean = 88 (B+)
Median = 90 (A-)
Modes = 88 (B+), 92 (A-), and 94 (A-)

I'm still working on some item analysis, and although I can tell you that it looks like each item was answered correctly by the majority of the class, I will review in class any items that a substantial minority missed.

You are always welcome to come discuss your exam with me--just sign up for a time on my office door.

Friday, October 17, 2008

review session time for the next quiz! PLEASE RESPOND!

hi friends! Dr. Clements and the TAs are trying to figure out when the best time is to have the review sessions for the next quiz to best prepare you guys. the next quiz is on thursday, nov. 13th, so we will be having a review session that tuesday and wednesday. some students had indicated that your cohort generally got out of class earlier on tuesdays, and so let us know what are good times to meet so that commuters who want to attend the session would not have to stay around school for an extra 6 hours. also, now having taken the quiz, let us know whether the format and depth of the review session (going through the study guide item by item with application questions) were informative to helping you prepare for the actual quiz, and if there’s anything you’d like to see us do or change to better equip you for the next exam.

so respond:
1. good times for the tuesday review session
2. good times for the wednesday review session
3. feedback/suggestions for review session

spacing between sentences???

Ok, I double spaced between sentences on my last article review and they're all circled! We're only supposed to single space between sentences??? The examply clearly looks double-spaced..

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Reference - Title capitalization

The title for a book chapter is "Spiritually Oriented Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy." Do I cite this as:

1) Tan, S. Y., & Johnson, W. B. (2005). Spiritually oriented Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy.

2) Tan, S. Y., & Johnson, W. B. (2005). Spiritually oriented Cognitive-behavioral Therapy.

3) Tan, S. Y., & Johnson, W. B. (2005). Spiritually oriented Cognitive-Behavioral therapy.

4) Tan, S. Y., & Johnson, W. B. (2005). Spiritually oriented cognitive-behavioral therapy.


Thank you!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Questions from Review Session

1. Will students be asked to produce the formulae for central tendency and dispersion?
---
No, but you might well be asked to recognize them. My advice would be to understand what each measure does and how they differ from one another rather than rotely memorizing symbols. That is, if you understand conceptually what a standard deviation is and how it differs from variance or SE or SS, you should recognize its formula. Such recognition and understanding will be infinitely more useful to you in both the long- and short-term than simple memorization.

2. What is the unit of the standard error?
---
The unit of the standard error is the original unit of measurement in the data set. Remember that the standard error provides an estimate of the precision of the mean. Said in another way, the SE defines the range around the sample mean in which the population mean is likely to lie. If the SE is large, your estimate of the mean is not very precise.

Imagine, for instance, that the obtained mean of all your grades in a given course was 91. If the standard error of that estimate were 1/2 point, you'd be feeling pretty confident about how much knowledge you really obtained. If, on the other hand, the SE were 50, this estimate of 91 could be very different from the true measure of your knowledge in the class. With a small standard error, we are more hopeful that our obtained mean more closely (a) represents the sample data and (b) approximates the population parameter.

3. What is the proper notation for population parameters and sample statistics?
---
As noted in class, population parameters are typically indicated using Greek letters (which, by APA style guildelines, are never italicized) and sample statistics are indicated using italicized Roman letters. There are a few exceptions to this general rule, but we have not yet covered any of those exceptions.

Question on formulas

It would be helpful to me if the formulas for variance, sum of squares, standard deviation, and standard errors could be put into words. I would also appreciate clarification as to what each symbol in the formula means.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Study Guide for Exam 1

The study guide for exam 1 is now posted on Portico. The TAs will have copies of it at the review sessions as well.

Location for Study Session

The Tuesday night review session will be at 6 p.m. in Room 314 in the Psych Building.

The Wednesday night review session will be at 6 p.m. in Room 311 in the Psych Building.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Printed Output

Is it ok to copy the data into a smaller format so it won't use so much paper? I have already exported it to Word and all looks good (a bit different presentation due to formatting differences) or do you require the original output? Also, do you want the data file in its entirety to show the z-score calculations?

Z-Scores, Part II

I'm a little confused as to what rolls we're supposed to compute the z-scores for in question 2. Are we supposed to use the rolls from Group 1?

Z-score calculations

I am having trouble setting up SPSS to calculate the z-scores for the specific rolls. I can do all this manually but would prefer to do it the "easy" way. What i have done so far is calculate the means for die1, die2, and the total for each of the 6 rolls. With this done, which variables do i choose when creating the z-scores? Am I at least on the right track? If not, what direction should i take? I know where i want to go but am not sure how to get there. A little help please :-)

Saturday, October 11, 2008

number format

For the homework assignment, do we have to put our answers in a specific format? For instance, if an answer that I got from SPSS was 1.234, do I need to put 1.23? Or if an answer was 3, do I have to put 3.0 or 3.00? Thanks.

Clarification

I have a question on our first assignment. Question 3A and 3E are highly similar, I would like to know what specific things we should focus on when we are answering them. Thank you.

Friday, October 10, 2008

SPSS Grad Pack 17.0

I just received the following email from a supervisor at the bookstore:
---
Some of the students in your linear regression class have been patiently asking when SPSS Graduate Pack 17.0 will arrive at the bookstore. We ordered copies of the program almost 2 weeks ago but it has not yet arrived.

When we called SPSS this morning about the delay, we were surprised to learn that while the Professional Pack 17.0 is available, the Graduate Pack is not yet available. Although we will carry the Graduate Pack when it is shipped, SPSS unfortunately does not know when the Graduate Pack will be ready.

I thought this information might be of use to you and your students.
---
This is, of course, concerning news, and I am dreadfully sorry that it is affecting you.

There are several options available. You could use the software in the library/computer labs. You could purchase an earlier version of the software from another source (online, for instance). You could use the computer of a colleague in the class who owns a previous version of the software. You could use the computer of an advanced student who owns a previous version of the software.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Z-scores (NOTE NEW ANSWER)

In question 2 of our descriptive homework, we are asked to calculate the z-scores of numbers 1 through 6 based on the data garnered from question 1. This works for die1 and die2, but as for the total, shouldn't we instead find the z-scores from numbers 2 through 12? The table is only set up from 1 to 6, so should we just write in the z-scores from 2 to 12 instead?

Review Sessions Tuesday and Wednesday at 6 p.m.

The first exam is rapidly approaching. . .

Descriptive Homework

The dataset (and an electronic copy of the assignment) are posted on Portico. Log in, select the My Courses tab, choose Files from the menu on the left, and download the SPPS data file.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Title Page?

I know this is late but does anybody know if we turn our article review just as Dr. Clements has or do we put a title page?

APA format question

I cannot find any information concerning the use of a title in an article critique? Is there such a thing or do we just put "Article Critique" as the title?

What's in a pseudonym...

Hello. I was trying to figure out where to put my name for this assignment since we won't be using a cover page (where it would normally be). I'm assuming in the upper right hand corner? Also, can you (Mari, TAs, anyone) give a little more information on the use of a pseudonym and how this will work out when you hand the assignments back out to us? Gracias.

That's Average?!?

Okay, this has nothing to do with how well any of us learn GLM, but, as a former eating disorder research assistant (Chris, feel free to jump in), I think Dr. Clements' hubby's standards for "average" are, wow.

Monica Sales is average? (Face may not be perfect, but great Dancing With the Stars body).

An actress/comedian who's "bit" is being "average" and talking about the frustrations as such: Genine Garofalo.

Genine's talked about how she's always 30 pounds heavier between movies, they give her parts with it in her contract that she first has to lose the pounds, and then "she sells out" (her words) and loses this weight to secure the part.

I also love her comedian act that talks about women eating muffin tops as being a sign of having an eating disorder (as she rips off a muffin top and bites into it).

Anyways, averages in stats are more about mean, mode, median (or actually just means), but, there go my morning thoughts.

Hope all's well in "journal analyzing land."

(The profs at Fuller have a lot of cool empirical studies they've published.)

God bless to all (big, small, gorgeous, "ugly", and average),
-Ramona

article review question: population

hello, i have a question regarding the article review:

the article i am using is a theoretical article, and it looks at a lot of general pictures with very little number crunching. if the authors are primarily using references to other works to support their argument (like saying "this person's study showed that 10% of these people are likely to ____"), and cites a lot of these types of examples, would i have to include all of them in the "Population from Theory was Developed" section of the article review, even if some of them don't actually go into specifics about the sample/population sizes? or should they even go in that section because the authors did not primarily interact with those populations? thanks!

Friday, October 3, 2008

Blogger invitation errors

One of the students in the class who had been having repeated difficulties signing in to blogger sent the following advice for anyone else who has experienced this difficulty:

Hello, I think I figured out what was causing the error, and here is how I got the registration to work - Basically, the link you sent us is the sign-in screen for blogger. It was asking if you have a google account or not, but what you have to do is click on the "create account" anyway, even if you have an existing google account. Then, when you go into the "create account", it will display your google account, and ask you what your blogger username will be, and once you register that name, it will register you into the blogger. I hope this might help.

I re-sent invitations again at ~4 p.m. this afternoon to those who still had invitations pending...

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Resources for Article Reviews

Are posted on Portico. Click on the "My Courses" tab, then select "Gen Linear Model: Regression," then select "Files."

The Article Summary Outline (that includes an embedded example) is a Word document, and the list of faculty recommendations for research articles is a pdf file.