Please check this website periodically for announcements regarding HUM BEHV 3ST3.
- The course outline can be obtained here. (N.B. The outline might change before the start of the term).
- Fall Term, 2019
- The course will meet on Monday, Wednesday (11:30AM-12:20PM) and Friday (1:30-2:20PM) in BSB 137.
- My office hour will be on Wednesday, 1:30-2:30 PM, in PC-411 (the Psychology Building).
- Your TAs will have office hours on Wednesdays, 10-11 AM, in PC-429.
"Without replication, all results should be taken as preliminary." -- Gary Marcus, Cleaning Up Science, The New Yorker News Desk, December 24, 2012
- Updates & Announcements:
- Updates and announcements will be posted here throughout the term.
- [04-Dec 10:25 PM] The slides that I used on December 4th to illustrate how to calculate different quantities in an ANOVA table can be found here.
- [03-Dec 2:05 PM] There will be a review session in PC-411 (Psychology Building) on Wednesday, December 11th, from 1:30 to 2:30 PM. I will be there to at least try to answer any question you may have about the material covered in the course.
- [18-Nov 10:50 AM] The makeup for test 2 is scheduled for Friday, November 22, 11:30-12:20. It will be held in PC-205A (Psychology Building).
- [18-Nov 10:40 AM] My office hour for November 20th has been moved from 1:30-2:30 PM to 3:30-4:30 PM.
- [13-Nov 10:05 AM] I have uploaded copies of a z table, a t table, and an F table (which we will use later in the course).
- [11-Nov 9:35 PM] The slides I presented in class on 11-Nov-2019 which summarize the various forms of z and t tests that we've discussed can be found here.
- [11-Nov 10:25 AM] Due to a scheduling conflict, my office hour on November 20 will be moved from 1:30-2:30 to 3:30-4:30 PM.
- [20-Oct 10:30 PM] A reminder: as stated in the course outline, there will be no 3ST3 lecture tomorrow (21-Oct-2019). Class will resume on Wednesday.
- [07-Oct 10:25 AM] The slides on regression can be found here.
- [07-Oct 10:15 AM] For those of you who missed the first test (and have proper documentation): the makeup exam will be held on Thursday, 2:30-3:20 PM in room PC-411 (in the Psychology Building).
- [01-Oct 11:20 AM] As I announced in class, you are not required to read the following sections in your textbook: 4.5, 4.6, 5.6, 5.10, 5.11, 5.12, 9.12, 9.14, 9.16, and 9.17.
- [01-Oct 11:15 AM] Because we had to rush through some material at the end of Monday's lecture, I have decided that the first test will not cover material on Linear Regression (Chapter 10). Instead, the test will cover material in Chapters 1-5 and Chapter 9 (plus the related material in the lectures).
- [01-Oct 11:10 AM] I updated the slides on the correlation lectures so that they include only the material that will be covered on the first test.
- [26-Sep 9:55 AM] I updated the slides for the correlation lectures to include some new slides that I used in class.
- [18-Sep 10:10 AM] I fixed slides 15 & 25 (Week 2 Part 1: Central Tendency) so that the circle now surrounds the correct value of the median.
- [18-Sep 9:45 AM] I have changed the time of my weekly office hour from 2:30-3:30 to 1:30-2:30 PM on Wednesday (in PC-411).
- [16-Sep 2:56 PM] In class we talked about how graphs can be used to mislead readers. In particular, we noted that fiddling with the X or Y axes can make some small differences look very large and some large differences very small. This post by Kevin Drum at Mother Jones illustrates another common technique of using statistics to mislead readers: choosing an arbitrary baseline to make the current situation look unusually good (or bad).
- [13-Sep 12:40 PM] I uploaded copies of the slides from the lecture on measures of variability.
- [13-Sep 12:15 PM] Here is a YouTube video about a "Wisdom of the Crowd" competition that was very similar to our jelly bean estimation contest.
- [13-Sep 11:55 AM] Copies of the slides from the lecture on central tendency have been posted here.
- [10-Sep 10:00 AM] SAS is recruiting a note taker for 3ST3. If you are interested, or want to learn more about the position, please contact SAS at sasnotes@mcmaster.ca.
- [09-Sep 8:10 PM] Your TAs will have office hours on Wednesdays, 10-11AM, in PC-429.
- [05-Sep 10:30 AM] I have put a third copy of the textbook on 2-hour reserve in Thode Library. Also, I have posted copies of the lecture slides for week 1 (see below).
- [04-Sep 10:10 AM] A picture of the jar of jelly beans that we are using for the wisdom of the crowd demonstration can be seen here.
- Interesting websites that deal with statistical issues
- Why you should love statistics [TED talk by Alan Smith]
- 3 ways to spot a bad statistic [TED talk by Mona Chalabi]
- Impossibly hungry judges
- Here is a video from the Khan Academy that illustrates how to read a box-and-whisker plot.
- The following items review important issues regarding significance testing:
- Goodman, S (2008). A Dirty Dozen: Twelve P-Value Misconceptions, Seminars in Hematology, 45(3), 135-40.
- Cohen, J (1994). The earth is round (p<.05). American Psychologist, 49(12), pp. 997-1003.
- Lykken, D.T. (1968). Statistical significance in psychological research. Psychological Bulletin, 70(3), pp. 151-159.
- Gelman, A (2013). P values and statistical practice. Epidemiology, 24(1), 69-72.
- Loftus, G. (1996). Psychology will be a much better science when we change the way we analyze data. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 5, 161-71.
- Krantz, D (1999). The null hypothesis testing controversy in Psychology. J. American Statistical Association, 44(448), 1372-81.
- Significant
- Please don't ever try to boost your results.
- The following items review important issues regarding replication:
- The 20% Statistician [Daniel Lakens blog]
- Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science [An interesting and sometimes-entertaining blog about statistics]
- Neuroskeptic
- Flowing Data [Data Visualization]
- Decision Science News
- The Hardest Science
- Peg's Blog [Psychology, psychometrics, and statistics]