Your first exam will include approximately 70 multiple choice questions that will ask you to apply your knowledge from laboratory, lessons, and lecture clips.
You are permitted to utilize one standard 8.5×11 sheets of paper including anything that you think will help you in the exam (your notes may be written on both sides).
The first set of questions on the exam will refer to a small data code book that you will be provided with. You will not be asked to write or recognize any syntax on this first exam.
The topics include:
- Know what information is contained in each section of a primary source journal article and best practices for literature reviews
- Know the structure of a data set (what should be contained in each row and column)
- Recognize categorical vs. quantitative variables
- Read a codebook
- Interpret a frequency distribution
- Recognize when different data management decisions are appropriate (when to collapse responses, create a score, when to code for missing data, when to code for valid data, etc).
- Descriptive Statistics (e.g. Shapes of frequency distributions and histograms; Measures of Central tendency- mean, median and mode, Spread/variability (standard deviation) of a distribution)
- Graphing (e.g. univariate and bivariate graphs, making graphing decisions based on variable type).
- Cross-tabs (aka contingency tables) – use of row vs. column percent.
- Independent and Dependent variables (aka predictor and outcome variables or explanatory and response variables)
- Sample statistics vs. population parameter
- Stating and interpreting the null and alternate hypothesis
- Type I error
- Reading scatter-plots and correlation coefficients
- Choosing the type of bivariate statistical test to use when examining an association (there are several questions on this).
- p-value
- Post hoc tests
- Evaluating and interpreting statistical output