August 30: Statistics

In-Class Activities:

1) Neuron Note: You wrote one last Neuron Note before the test. Unfortunately, there were technical difficulties with printing the answers to the last Neuron Note questions so you were not able to read my responses. You will get the answers to today's questions and last class' questions on Tuesday.

2) Real Research. Mrs. Foster presented her research from college to show you the actual details of psychological studies. She provided you with one of her surveys, informed consent, debriefing, and her hypotheses. We had a good conversation about set up, sampling issues, ethics, and more.

3) Central Tendency and Height. You all became "data" and we organized ourselves into a dichotomy, trichotomy, continuum, range, and histogram with mean, median, mode.

4) Standard Deviation Notes. We went step-by-step through the calculations of standard deviation using the example of punting distances. I explained the Normal Curve and its key percentages: 68%, 95%, 99.7%

5) Correlation Coefficient Notes. You do not need to know how to calculate it, but you do need to know what it means. There are two major questions to ask: Is it positive or negative? What is the strength? We went through examples and I encouraged you to find more this weekend.

6) Finding a Representative Sample with M&Ms. Each of you got a sample of 10 M&Ms. You calculated the percentage of each color of your M&Ms sample. Is it representative of the entire population of M&Ms' colors? No. So we calculated the entire class' M&M sample. Was it representative of the entire population of M&Ms? No. But it made the point of sampling and it tasted good.

Here is the distribution of colors:
13% Brown, 14% Yellow, 20% Orange, 13% Red, 16%Green, 24% Blue

For more M&Ms info, visit: http://us.mms.com/us/

Assignments:

1) Finish Chapter 1

2) Study for the first big test on Tuesday. 100 Multiple Choice Questions in 70 Minutes. get together with your study buddy. Review flashcards. Re-read the sections that were confusing. Send a message to the Email Group if you cannot figure out a concept. Good Luck! Remember to overlearn!