Prerequisites: PSYCH 1010, MATH 1010, WRTG 1010

Other course materials: Your course web site (www.psych.utah.edu/aoce) has all course materials posted for free. Most notably, all lectures are posted on the website as Web Lectures. You may also download and print the Web Lectures without cost except for your time, paper, and printer ribbon. If you downloaded and printed every part of the course as you went through it, the material (including lectures, tutorials, notes, and homework) would add up to about 1,300 pages.

How you will work and learn the material

There will be no standard text book. The ideas will be communicated in a multi-step process that encourages you to be as active as possible in learning statistical ideas.

ONLINE

This course has many innovative online computer programs designed to engage you in activities that allow you to learn how to think mathematically.

Actively process the ideas with Web Homework (required). After you have thought about the course ideas, you will be required to go actively over them again by doing homework. Homework will be done on the web and graded immediately by the computer. The computer will keep track of your score and you will be able to check it any time. Homeworks can be done over and over again if you wish to raise your score. Homework answers and the order of homework questions changes randomly each time you redo a homework.

Learn Thinking Strategies by playing games (required). You will also be able to play statistical problem solving games (Detect Difference and Difference to Inference) which teach statistical thinking. Your game scores will be kept by the computer and will be part of your grade. You can play the games and improve your score as often as you like. You can read about the theory behind the games by clicking the Relevant Publications link on the website.

Apply your knowledge in the Virtual Lab (required). You will have an opportunity to practice statistical knowledge in an online virtual lab that allows you to read a literature background, to choose research questions, to design a study that answers research question, to collect data, to analyze data using statistics you have learned, to reach a conclusion, and to write up a brief research report.

Practice your knowledge on Paper and Pencil Homework (recommended). Extra practice homework problems along with complete step-by-step answer keys are published on the web. This practice homework is offered to you as yet another way to engage in active learning of the material, but you are not required to work on it. These practice homeworks will form a focus for lab activities. It is worth noting that the paper and pencil midterm and final exams are very similar in form and content to the paper and pencil practice homeworks.

Read Web Lectures . Web Lectures corresponds to and are integrated with the interactive Authorware visualizations shown in class. The Web Lectures can be read online or printed out and read in hard copy.

View Authorware computer graphics online (optional). The computer graphics shown in class are available online. To view them requires that you download a plugin for your web browser (instructions for doing so are included among the course resources).

THROUGH EXAMS

Learn from Exam Feedback (required). A handwritten midterm and final exam will be a large part of your grade. In this class the exams are considered to be part of the learning process; to this end you will have optional second forms of both exams. If you do not do as well as you like on the first form of an exam you can consider it feedback about what concepts you need to learn better and then use that feedback to study for the the second form.

Competency Testing Approach: Two forms of both the midterm and final exams will be offered, about one or two weeks apart. If you take both forms of an exam, you automatically receive the higher of the two grades. A primary purpose of this multiple testing procedure is, as much as possible within practical constraints, to turn testing into feedback for learning. If you don't like your grade on the first form of the midterm, you will be able to take a second form of the midterm. Your motivation to achieve good grades becomes a motivation to learn the material that you missed on the first form so that you can do better on the second form. Thus the framework for interpreting first form performance de-emphasizes success, failure, and evaluation and moves toward feedback and learning. A second purpose of multiple testing is to move toward testing competencies. The instructor has basic statistical competencies in mind. Students have extra opportunities to attain these competencies by taking second forms of the exams. A third purpose of multiple testing is to increase the validity of the testing procedure: If extraneous factors (such as illness, personal pressures, other exams, etc.) influence your performance on the first form of the exam (thereby making the exam a less valid measure of your knowledge), you will have an opportunity to take it again. The exams will resemble the paper and pencil practice homework.

Grading Policies

Your grade will be based upon exams (midterm and final), and online activities such as Web Homework, Computer thinking games, and Virtual Lab. If you do not complete all the work in the class you will receive an Incomplete as a grade.
Assuming you complete all the work, your grade will be determined by the percentage of total points that you earn.

There will be no minuses or plusses on the letter grade in this class.

Special Computer System Requirements:

Internet Connection. You will need an Internet connection. For your convenience, the faster the connection, the better. If you don't have your own connection, Internet connections are available in labs throughout the U of U campus.
[NOTE: Internet connections made through "proxy servers" (such as those used by many businesses) may not allow you to use the course website unless you make special arrangements.]

Java. We are committed to creating sophisticated online learning environments. The kind of online interactivity we create requires that we use the Java programming language. So you must make sure that your browser is Java enabled. In Netscape 4.7x you can enable Java by selecting Edit/Preferences/Advanced and check "Enable Java."

Web Browser. We recommend that you use Netscape Communicator 4.76 or higher as your web browser, since it does not require a Java Plugin. Internet Explorer and Netscape 6.2 both require a Java plugin. If you choose to use these last two browsers, the resources pages of the website has a tutorial for downloading the Java plugin.

Computer platform: PC's work best with the website for this course. Mac's are problematic. We very much like Mac's but there is no Java plugin for the Mac operating system. Mac OS 10 is supposed to work with Java well but as of this date it still doesn't. While we've written the Java programs in ways that are as Mac-friendly as possible, we have been unable to solve all Mac problems. Most of the website works well with a Mac, but for some functions you will have to change to a PC.

Cookies. You must have your browser set to accept "cookies" which is usually the default setting on most browsers. Accepting "cookies" means that your computer is allowed to send information back to us identifying who you are. We can't give you credit for your work unless we know who you are. In Netscape 4.7x you can set cookies by selecting Edit/Preferences/Advanced and check "Accept all Cookies." [NOTE:Some people like to turn their "cookies" off when visiting certain commercial sites that do not respect privacy; this is a legitimate strategy to protect privacy. But in the case of this course, we must know who you are to be able to give you a grade for your work.]

Plugins. Plugins are programs that give your computer more functionality. All plugins for this course are free and can be dowloaded from the Internet. As noted above, if want to use Netscape 6.2 or Internet Explorer you will have to download the Java plugin.

To use the (optional) Authorware interactive presentations you will need to download a plugin called "Webplayer for PC" or "Webplayer for Mac." Instructions for doing so are on the course site.

To read certain online materials such as practice homeworks you will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader. Most computers already have Acrobat Reader. Instructions for downloading it are on the site.