Given our Chapter 5 and 6 readings plus the following videos,

  1. Against All Odds – Annenberg Learner – Normal Curves  https://www.learner.org/courses/againstallodds/unitpages/unit07.html
  2. Statistics 101:  Understanding Z-scores  – Brandon Foltz ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUu5HIHIrRw )
  3. What is a Normal Distribution? – zedstatistics ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKdB1d5-OE0 )
  4. Ben Ambridge: 9 myths about psychology, debunked  https://www.ted.com/talks/ben_ambridge_9_myths_about_psychology_debunked#t-203952 (very interesting, a few offensive comments, shows some normal curves, and what do you think of the claims? There is at least one misleading statements in this talk, can you find it?)

Answer the following questions:

  1. What is the normal curve and where does it come from?
  2. What are two observations in your life are normally distributed and what is one which is not?
  3. What good are z-scores and why would we need to know about them?
  4. Find a research paper in your field of interest and then:
    1. Explain the purpose of the study and its primary hypothesis or purpose
    2. Find and name some of the variables and descriptive statistics which the study reports.  For those variables, are any of them interval or ratio scale measurements?   What descriptive statistics are reported?  What graphs or charts are used?  Does the study report skewness, outliers, or indicate that any of the data is not normally distributed?
    3. What are the names of some of the other inferential statistical tests or procedures used in that paper?  We will not have studied these, but we want to start becoming familiar with the statistical tests used to analyze data in your field of interest.
    4. List one or two of those tests and explain what you think they do.