SO302 STATISTICS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

TENTATIVE SYLLABUS

Fall 2004

Lake Superior State University

Dept. of Sociology and Social Work

Instructor: Dr. G. F. Dobbertin

Office: Library 326

Office Hours: M,W,F @ 12pm

                        M,W @ 2pm

 

Readings assignments will be handed out in class.

 

Course Objective:

The student will learn some of the jargon of Statistics; solve problems involving measures of central tendency and variability; and become familiar with the foundations of statistical inference, eg. Z-scores, t-scores, and chi square. This will require weekly homework assignments, and tests. A small calculator which is capable of adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing and finding square roots is a necessity. The weekly reading assignments are tentative. We might be required to change dates or drop assignments, depending on how fast or slowly we cover the material.

The student is strongly advised to do all of the homework problems

when they are assigned.

Do not wait until Dr. Dobbertin has worked them in class before doing them yourself at home. If you do, you will probably not understand what is going on in class and will find that you do not really know how to solve the problems when you see them on the tests.

 

Weekly Chapter Assignments                                                     Quiz

        1       chpt. 1-4 central tendency

        2       chpt. 5 variability

        3       chpt 5  variability-------------------------------------------Sept. 15

        4       chpt. 6 standard scores

        5       chpt. 8 normal distribution

        6       chpt.  6, 8----------------------------------------------------Oct. 6

        7       chpt. 11 Standard error of the mean

        8       chpt. 11

        9       chpt. 11-------------------------------------------------------Oct 27

        10     chpt. 12 t test

        11     chpt. 12

        12     chpt. 12-------------------------------------------------------Nov. 17

        13     chpt. 17 week of Thanksgiving break

        14     chpt. 17

15          chpt. 17 Chi square------------------------------------------Dec. 8

16          Final exam scheduled on Tue. Dec. 14th at 3:00pm.

 

 

 

Grading:

1-     This class must grade itself as a group. You must all agree upon a grading scheme, report it to me in writing, and each of you must sign this report.

2-     If any of you disagree with this report you may design an alternative grading scheme and report it to me in writing. You must sign this alternate report.

3-     No more than two grading schemes and accompanying reports will be accepted. Each student must sign one of these two reports, if there is an alternative report.

4-     The grading will be done at the time scheduled for the final exam: 3pm, Thurs., Dec. 20