Assignment 1

Due Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008

You may do this assignment completely online by clicking here to open an email window, cutting and copying the below questions, typing your answers directly in the email, and then sending the email to me when complete.

Alternately, you can open up Microsoft word, cut and copy the below questions into Word and filling it out in Word. Bring a printed copy to class.

IF YOU COMPLETE THE ASSIGNMENT VIA EMAIL, PLEASE MAKE SURE I RECEIVE IT BY WEDNESDAY AT 10 AM OR BRING A PRINTED COPY OF YOUR ANSWERS TO CLASS.

Section 1: Personal information

  1. My name is:
  2. My email address is:
  3. I am:
    1. Registered
    2. Going to register
    3. Auditing
    4. Not sure
  4. My major is:
  5. The highest degree I’ve earned (so far):
    1. From (which college or university?):
  6. My Thesis/Dissertation topic is:
  7. My main interest in this course is:
  8. My greatest fear about this course is:
  9. My wildest hope for this course is:
  10. It is:
    1. OK to post my name and email address on the class web site so other students can use it
    2. Not OK to post my name and email address for other students

Section 2: Statistics Background

  1. What graduate level statistics course(s) have you taken (LIST ALL)?
  2. Which of these topics were covered? (Check as many topics as you have previously covered):
    1. Hypothesis testing
    2. T-test
    3. Analysis of variance
    4. Product-moment correlation
    5. Rank correlation
    6. Non-parametric tests
    7. Regression
    8. Multiple Regression
    9. Principle Components/Factor Analysis
    10. Multivariate Analysis of Variance

Section 3: Definitions

Please write out the definitions of the following terms. You are free to use your past statistics course notes, textbooks, etc for the answers. Responses don’t have to be “exact”, I just want to make sure you are familiar with these concepts.

  1. Normal Distribution:
  2. Mean:
  3. Parameter:
  4. Statistic:
  5. Standard error:
  6. Standard deviation:
  7. 95% confidence interval:
  8. Null Hypothesis:
  9. Alternate Hypothesis:

Section 4: Major concepts

  1. What is statistical power?
  2. If I report that two means are “not significantly different”, what does that mean? Are they the same?
  3. Why is 95% a good cut-off for whether or not something is significant?
  4. What does the term “p-value” refer to and explain what this value means.
  5. What is the purpose of regression? What does R2 refer to?
  6. When is ANOVA most useful (i.e., for what types of research approaches)?
  7. Describe the differences between metric and nonmetric measures. Give several examples of each.
  8. Describe the differences between ratio, interval, ordinal, and nominative variables. Give several examples of each.