Faculty Syllabus

Prerequisites
Students MUST have successfully completed PSYC 2301 or equivalent, and MATH 1314, MATH 1332 or MATH 1342 or equivalent, with a grade of C or better.  This requirement will not be waived.  If the courses were not taken at ACC, students must provide transcript(s) to show fulfillment of this requirement.

Required Textbook

Title: MindTap for Essentials of Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences
ISBN: 9780357035528
Authors: Frederick J. Gravetter, Larry B. Wallnau, Lori-Ann B. Forzano, James E. Witnauer
Edition: 10th (2021)
Publisher: Cengage
Delivery Method: Courseware: MindTap

About the Textbook:  This is an interactive, digitally based textbook by Cengage. It provides extensive opportunities for interactive learning and prompt feedback. If you do not purchase the on-line textbook, you will not be able to work on the online practices and quizzes, both contribute to your grades.

The textbook can be accessed in the Blackboard course site.

Students must establish and use ACC e-mail system to receive announcements and e-mails sent from Blackboard.

Blackboard
Students must establish a Blackboard account.  (Go to the following link to learn how to log into Blackboard: http://irt.austincc.edu/blackboard/stlogin.html ).  The instructor relies on Blackboard Announcement o communicate to students outside the classroom, such as reading and homework assignments, quizzes, grades, etc.

Grading system

The final letter grade is determined by the total points students accumulated at the end of the semester.  (This course does NOT use percentage calculations to determine the grades.) 

• Your “Total” point is displayed in Blackboard/My Grades.
• You can also use the “Grade Tracking Template” provided on Blackboard/Start Here/Course Grades to track the points you earned throughout the semester yourself.

The final letter grade assignment is determined as follows:

A:  ≥ 1110 points based on the total points you accumulated at the end of the semester and scored at least 60 points on each and every one of the four exams.

B:  990 - 1109 points based on the total points you accumulated at the end of the semester.

C:  870 - 989 points based on the total points accumulated at the end of the semester.

D:  750 - 869 points based on the total points accumulated at the end of the semester.

F:  < 750 points.

Students earn points by performing the following tasks:

• 1.  Exams (400 points)
• There are four exams administered by the Distance Education (DE) Proctoring service.
• Students must schedule an appointment with DE Proctoring to take the exam within the exam time frame, usually 5 days.
• If you missed an exam, you may arrange for a make-up exam for the first three exams.  Supporting official document must be provided to make the request. The make-up exam must be scheduled within three days from the beginning of the original scheduled exam date.
• Only one make-up exam is allowed for each exam. There is no make-up exam for the last exam.

2. MindTap Chapter Review (Quiz) (240 points)

• There will be a Chapter Review or quiz on the publisher’s website for each of the 14 chapters covered in this course. It is open book with a time limit of 60 minutes.
• You can earn up to 20 points per chapter review quiz.
• You can take the quiz twice. If you do, the last trial score will be your final grade.

• You are required to work on 12 out of the 14 quizzes. This means you may miss two quizzes for whatever reasons you may have.  Again, I highly recommend that you work on all 14 quizzes.  You will earn extra credit points from the two optional quizzes.

• There are no late submission or make-up quizzes. 
• Please work ahead. The due dates are displayed in the Course Schedule on page 5 of the syllabus, which is posted in “Start Here/Syllabus, and Grading.”

3. MindTap Homework Assignments (442 points)

• Homework assignments are very important because they give you a chance to check how well you understand the material from each chapter.  Similar questions often appear in the exams.
• There will be a Homework assignment on the publisher’s website for each of the 14 chapters covered in this course. It is open book with no time limit.
• You can submit the homework once. But you have three trials for most of the questions in the homework.
• You are required to work on 12 homework assignments. This means you can miss two such assignments for whatever reasons you may have.  However, I highly recommend that you work on all 14 homework assignments. You will earn extra credit points for working on the two optional assignments.
• There are no late submission or make-up homework assignments
• Please work ahead. The due dates are displayed in the Course Schedule on page 5 of the syllabus, which is posted in “Start Here/Syllabus, and Grading.”

4. Orientation Quiz (12 points)

5. Self-introduction Blackboard Discussion Board Posts (12 points)

7. Extra credit

Students can earn extra credit points from the following sources:

    MindTap Mastery Training Assignments 

• There will be a Mastery Training (MT) assignment at the publisher’s website for each of the 14 chapters covered in this course.
• You can earn up to 5 points for each MT assignment. You may try as many times as you like to complete the assignment.
• There are no make-up MT assignments.  Please work ahead.  The due dates are displayed in the Course Schedule on page 5 of the syllabus, which is posted in “Start Here/Syllabus, and Grading.”

   You will earn extra credit points when you submit more than the required assignments described in Items 2 and 3 above. 

• For example, when you complete all 14 quizzes, you will earn 20 extra credit points.  The same is true with the homework assignments.

   There are also extra credit opportunities in the exams

Students are expected to do the reading and the assignment according to the course schedule below:

This course will give you a solid foundation in the following areas which will prepare you for future more advanced learning in statistics:

(1) measurement scales,

(2) frequency tables and graphs,

(3) measures of central tendency and variability,

(4) standardized scores (z scores),

(5) normal distributions,

(6) sampling distributions,

(7) hypothesis testing,

(8) z test, single-sample, paired-samples, and independent-samples t tests, and ANOVA-F test,

(9) chi-square and other nonparametric statistics,

(10) correlation and regression, and

(11) brief introduction to multivariate statistics.

Emphasis is on the conceptual understanding, interpretation, and applications of various statistical procedures within the context of socail and behavioral research. Calculations are required.

The course is designed to introduce basic statistical procedures applied to the behavioral science research.  The focus is on the conceptual understanding of the statistical concepts, procedures and interpretations of the results.  At the end of the semester, students should acquire knowledge and skills in the following areas:

1. basic research and statistical vocabulary and concepts
2. organization, presentation, and interpretation of data
3. conducting inferential statistical procedures: hypothesis testing, interval estimation, and simple prediction
4. choosing appropriate statistical procedure(s) given a research question and research design.