PSY 216: Psychology Statistics

Course Description

This course will focus on an overview of the general concepts associated with descriptive and inferential statistics in psychology. There will be an examination of the purpose behind the use of statistics in psychology and an investigation of the process undertaken to derive these statistics. Students will apply these principles by conducting a variety of statistical analyses. (3 credits)

Prerequisites

  • ENG 101: English Composition
  • PSY 101: Psychology or SOC 101: Sociology

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

Students who successfully complete this course will be able to:

  1. Examine the general concepts associated with descriptive statistics.
  2. Demonstrate an understanding of the purpose of inferential statistics and discover the process needed to derive these statistics.
  3. Develop hypotheses and engage in hypothesis testing.
  4. Employ critical thinking to conduct the appropriate type of statistical analysis and to determine if findings are statistically significant.
  5. Illustrate how to apply statistics in the psychological field.

Course Activities and Grading

AssignmentsPointsWeight

Discussions (Weeks 1-8)

320

32%

Quizzes (Weeks 1-3 & 5-7)

120

12%

StatCrunch Project Report (Weeks 1-3 & 5-8)

210

21%

Midterm Paper (Week 4)

150

15%

Final Paper (Week 8)

200

20%

Total

1000

100%

Required Textbooks

Available through Charter Oak State College's online bookstore

  • Aron, A., Aron, E. & Coups, E. (2022). Statistics for Psychology - Mylab with eText. 7th ed. Pearson. ISBN-10: 0-13-665816-4 or ISBN-13: 978-0-13-665816-0

Course Schedule

Week

SLOs

Readings and Exercises

Assignments

1

1,5

Topic: Descriptive Statistics

  • Readings:
    • Chapter 1
    • Chapter 2
    • Chapter 1 - web version (optional - recommended for students who have no prior statistics experience)
  • Videos:
    • StatTalk Video 1 - What is an Average? (Access through MyStatLab)
  • Read assigned chapters
  • Watch StatTalk Video
  • Participate in the Discussions
  • Review the lecture material
  • Complete Quiz
  • Create database in StatCrunch
  • Submit StatCrunch weekly report

2

2,5

Topic: Inferential Statistics

  • Readings:
    • Chapter 3
  • Videos:
    • StatTalk Video 3 - Sampling (Access through MyStatLab)
  • Read assigned chapter
  • Watch StatTalk Video
  • Participate in the Discussions
  • Review the lecture material
  • Complete Quiz
  • Submit StatCrunch weekly report

3

3,5

Topic: Hypothesis Testing

  • Readings:
    • Chapter 4
    • Chapter 5
  • Videos:
    • StatTalk Video 6 - The Normal Distribution (Access through MyStatLab)
    • StatTalk Video 7 - Not the Normal Distribution (Access through MyStatLab)
  • Read assigned chapters
  • Watch StatTalk Videos
  • Participate in the Discussions
  • Review the lecture material
  • Complete Quiz
  • Submit StatCrunch weekly report

4

4,5

Topic: Statistical Significance

  • Readings:
    • Chapter 6
    • Chapter 7
  • Videos:
    • StatTalk Video 9 - Why use a p-value anyway? (Access through MyStatLab)
    • StatTalk Video 10 - What does a p-value mean? (Access through MyStatLab)
    • StatTalk Video 11 - A p-value is about the probability of the data and not the hypothesis (Access through MyStatLab)
    • StatTalk Video 12 - What is statistical significance? (Access through MyStatLab)
  • Read assigned chapters
  • Watch StatTalk Videos
  • Participate in the Discussions
  • Review the lecture material
  • Submit Midterm Paper

5

4,5

Topic: T-Test

  • Readings:
    • Chapter 7
    • Chapter 8
  • Videos:
    • StatTalk Video 17 - How does statistical testing work?(Access through MyStatLab)
  • Read assigned chapters
  • Watch StatTalk Video
  • Participate in the Discussions
  • Review the lecture material
  • Complete Quiz
  • Submit StatCrunch weekly report

6

4,5

Topic: ANOVA

  • Readings:
    • Chapter 9
  • Read assigned chapter
  • Participate in the Discussions
  • Review the lecture material
  • Complete Quiz
  • Submit StatCrunch weekly report

7

4,5

Topic: Correlation

  • Readings:
    • Chapter 11
  • Read assigned chapter
  • Participate in the Discussions
  • Review the lecture material
  • Complete Quiz
  • Submit StatCrunch weekly report

8

4,5

Topic: Chi-Square Analysis

  • Readings:
    • Chapter 13
  • Videos:
    • StatTalk Video 24 - Statistics is about people even if you can't see the tears (Access through MyStatLab)
  • Read assigned chapter
  • Participate in the Discussions
  • Review the lecture material
  • Submit StatCrunch weekly report
  • Submit Final Paper
  • Complete Course Evaluation

COSC Accessibility Statement

Charter Oak State College encourages students with disabilities, including non-visible disabilities such as chronic diseases, learning disabilities, head injury, attention deficit/hyperactive disorder, or psychiatric disabilities, to discuss appropriate accommodations with the Office of Accessibility Services at OAS@charteroak.edu.

COSC Policies, Course Policies, Academic Support Services and Resources

Students are responsible for knowing all Charter Oak State College (COSC) institutional policies, course-specific policies, procedures, and available academic support services and resources. Please see COSC Policies for COSC institutional policies, and see also specific policies related to this course. See COSC Resources for information regarding available academic support services and resources.