Week Fourteen:  Review for final

This is review week for the final exam.  There are no new readings.  The final will be on December 13 at 9 a.m.  We will do the course evaluation on the same day. 

The final will be comprehensive and will have both statistics and multiple choice components and will be longer than the midterms.  Remember to bring a calculator and a pencil with an eraser.

There are two important optional review quizzes this week.  Optional Review for the Final Exam Optional Statistics Review  -  if you have trouble viewing the graphs for this review, you can see them here.    You may take these as often as you like, and you can see the correct answers in SAKAI after taking them.  The questions are very similar to those on the final examination.  These are optional, they are not calculated into the grade. But they should be a big help in preparing for the final.

If you have not yet answered the required brief questionnaire about the Hybrid Internet format of this course, please do it now.   It should take five minutes or less.  Start the Questionnaire Here.

Two extra credit assignments are listed on the course home page between weeks eleven and twelve.    You may do either or both of them.

One good way to study is to review the presentations that have been prepared for each chapter.  These presentations summarize the main points that will be covered on the final.  They are available in Google Documents as well as in Sakai/Resources.  The narrated versions in Sakai/Resources give the fullest explanation, and hearing as well as reading may be beneficial.  If you are unclear about any of the material, the chapters in the textbook offer a more complete explanation.  You can also review the quizzes you have taken during the semester.  Many of the items on the final will be the same.  It may be more efficient to do the optional review quizzes first, then zero in on the areas where you have the most difficulty.

The following chart summarizes the presentations that are available and how they match up with the text chapters and other readings.

Text Chapters and Online Materials	In Google Docs - this format may be convenient for printing, but it does not offer narration.	In SAKAI/ Resources with narration
Babbie Chapter One	Human Inquiry and Science	Week One
Babbie Chapter Four:	Research Design	Week Two
Babbie Chapter Five (except reliability and validity)	Conceptualization, Operationalization and Measurement	Week Three
Babbie Chapter Fourteen:	Computing Percentages and Expected Frequencies for Cross-Tabulation Tables	Week Four
Descriptive Statistics, Scatterplot and Line of Best Fit and Describing Relationships:  Scatterplot and Correlation.  Statistics Review Sheet	Descriptive Statistics.	Week Five
Babbie, Chapter Six	Indexes, Scales and Typologies	Week Six
Ayers, Page 171	Conducting an Index of Attitudes Towards Abortion	Week Six
Babbie, Chapter Two	Theory and Research	Week Seven
Capital Punishment and Homicide.pdf in Sakai/Resources/Week Seven	Capital Punishment and Homicide Rates	Week Seven
Babbie, Chapter Seven	Sampling:  An Introduction	Week Nine
Babbie, Chapter Seven	Sampling Statistics	Week Nine
Babbie, Chapter Eight	Experimental Research:  An Overview	Week Ten
Babbie, Chapter Eleven	Unobtrusive Methods	Week Eleven
Babbie, Chapter Three	Ethics and Politics of Research	Week Twelve
Babbie, Chapter Five, last section	Criteria of Measurement Quality	Week Thirteen
Linear Regression Applet-  Statistics Review Sheet	Using Linear Regression	Week Thirteen

The Statistics Review Sheet summarizes  the statistics we are covering this term in a handy tabular form.  You can use this to organize your statistics review. 

We will have the following kinds of statistical items:

1.  Descriptive statistics for continuous distributions:   mean, median, mode, standard deviation, range. See Descriptive Statistics. narrated version in Sakai/Resource/Week Five (there are some practice items here;  answers to the practice items here). 
2.  Row percents, column percents, total percents and expected frequencies for cross-tabulation tables.  See Computing Percentages and Expected Frequencies for Cross-Tabulation Tables  narrated version in Sakai/Resources/Week Four
3.  Margins of error for percentages and mean scores and the sample size required to obtain a desired margin of error -  see Sampling Statistics, narrated version in Sakai/Resources/Week Nine.
4.   Use a regression equation to compute a predicted dependent variable from a value for an independent variable.  See Using Linear Regression, narrated version in Sakai/Resources/Week Thirteen.