06219 2 pages within 6hrs
Week 2 - Discussion
Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses. Refer to the Discussion Forum Grading Rubric under the Settings icon above for guidance on how your discussion will be evaluated.
For this discussion, identify the appropriate application of standardized scores to reflect on their benefits and to interpret how test scores and measures are commonly presented.
Review Chapter 3 of your course text, which introduces probability and the standard normal distribution. Examine the assumptions and limitations presented in these topics and then consider and discuss the following questions:
· When comparing data from different distributions, what is the benefit of transforming data from these distributions to conform to the standard distribution?
· What role do z-scores play in this transformation of data from multiple distributions to the standard normal distribution?
· What is the relationship between z-scores and percentages?
· In your opinion, does one do a better job of representing the proportion of the area under the standard curve? Give an example that illustrates your answer.
Guided Response: Review your classmates’ posts. Respond substantively to at least three peers. What did you find useful about their explanations and examples? What suggestions would you make for improvement? Ask a question for further clarification as to the meaning and use of the z-scores.
Required Resources
Text
Read from the course text, Statistics for the Behavioral & Social Sciences :
· Chapter 3: The Standard Normal Distribution and z Scores
· Chapter 4: Applying z to Groups
· Chapter 5: The t-tests
Article
Nair, U. S., Collins, B. N., & Napolitano, M. A. (2013). Differential effects of a body image exposure session on smoking urge between physically active and sedentary female smokers. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 27(1), 322-327. Retrieved from the EBSCOhost database.
· This is an article on body image intervention and its effect on smoking urge that used t-tests for analysis. This article is required to complete the assignment for Week Three.
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Websites
The Critical Thinking Community
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. (http://www.criticalthinking.org)
· This website teaches and promotes the main tenets of critical thinking. There are some excellent articles that can help you better understand what critical thinking is and how to utilize it in everyday life.
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Recommended Resources
Multimedia
Statistics Learning Centre. (2011, December 5). Hypothesis tests, p-value-statistics help
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[Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zZYBALbZgg
· This is an easy to understand video that takes you step-by-step through the basic hypothesis testing process. It is helpful for learning what a p-value is and how statistical significance works.
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Uniview Worldwide Ltd. (Producer). (2005) Inferential statistics
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[Video file]. In Research methods in the social sciences. Retrieved from the Films On Demand database.
· This is a short and fun video on inferential statistics from the On Demand films in the Ashford University Library. It explores setting significance levels, tests of difference, the sign test, degrees of freedom, Yates correction, expected frequencies, parametric tests, and plastic interval scales among other concepts.
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Websites
VassarStats: Website for Statistical Computation
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. (http://vassarstats.net)
· This website includes tools to calculate many of the statistical tests we cover in this course including t-tests, ANOVA, correlation, and regression. Each calculator includes a tutorial and/or walkthrough.
Web Center for Social Research Methods
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. (http://socialresearchmethods.net)