The Real Data

You want to know who had the real data in each group? Here it is:

Group 1 on Program Satisfaction: Max
Group 2 on Informed Citizens: Alicia
Group 3 on Social Networking: Sean
Group 4 on Chocolate & Learning: Cathy
Group 5 on Vacationing with Kids: Browning

All the other data sets were slightly, moderately, or hugely changed from the original data set.

Report 3 Feedback and Grading

I've finished going over all of the third reports. Overall the class did an excellent job! Congratulations to all of you for a job well done.

I will be sending individualized feedback to each person via email today. The feedback will include Raylene's spreadsheet rubric scoring, my written report rubric scoring (with very short notes), and my markup of your paper. In some cases there's no markup at all, in other cases very little markup.

Grades are not due until early January. With the grading of reports done, you now know 50% of your grade. The other 50 points of your grade will come from your timely submittals of the problem sets (16 points), providing a question and comment at the least for each knowledge dig (16 points), and attendance at the class sessions (18 points). Thankfully Google Docs and the Disqus commenting system will make it easy for me to look up each person's submittals quite easily. And, realistically, you should already know if you submitted problem sets, participated in the discussions, and attended class. I just need to do the clerical work of looking up this info for each person.

Next week I need to be providing feedback for my Multimedia Learning class. Grades might be submitted for Applied Statistics before the January deadline, but likely not much before.

I hope all of you have a great holiday break!

Getting Started on a Dissertation

This is a re-post of an entry at the L&I department website.

Dr. Burns has written a wonderful small document for students (especially those in the first through third years) about how to get started on a dissertation. Yep, you read correctly. Dr. "Bob" suggests getting started in an informal way as early as your first year and the summer after your first year.

This is "must read" information, and sage advice, for anyone who wants to graduate in a timely manner and do so in a relative stress-free manner. Beyond timeliness and reduced stress levels, Dr. Bob's approach will result in the most important thing: a much better final dissertation product. So download this wonderful PDF and read it over the holiday season. You'll be glad you did. Best of all, it's a free gift from us to you.

how-do-I-get-started pdf download

Report 2 Model Paper

I know this is a wee bit late, but it still may help some of you. I'm posting an example of a model paper done for Report 2. As with the first model paper, this report is not perfect and there were others who also wrote great reports. However, for some of you this may be a helpful guide about how to improve your own written research communication. The cover page has been removed to protect the identify of this second (and different) author of a model report.

model report 2 download

Report 3 Structure

I'm posting the Report 3 Structure document I passed out and discussed at our last class. This document provides key hints for how to structure your last report—with special attention given to where you'll add key bits of text to accommodate your correlational analyses. This affects the Research Questions, Results, and Discussion sections mainly. In total, addressing correlation probably adds about three paragraphs to your final report.

report 3 structure download

Final Dig and Problem Set

The final knowledge dig and problem set are ready! See sidebar for direct links to each assignment. Problem Set 9 has 5 questions. You only need to complete questions 1 through 3 for the final submission. I encourage all of you to try questions 4 and 5 before our last class. We'll go over all of these questions, however, at our last class session.

s_pooled Revisited

Many of your spreadsheets are in great shape, but where some people have the most problems is calculating s_pooled. I think this is mainly because it is the longest formula and the most complicated to double-check because it uses so many parentheses. As an optional download I'm providing a big one page handout, with color coding, showing two different ways you could calculate s_pooled in your spreadsheets. I hope this helps some of you. For others, this is another reference that may make future spreadsheet work a wee bit easier.

s_pooled revisited pdf download