No course in quantitative methods would be complete without these three goals. Lectures, readings, and homework will attempt to bring these goals together in this course. The overriding theme of the course is that research must maintain a humble balance between being data directed and model directed. The source of scientific truth is often insight in the form of a hypothesis. Truth is never proven empirically, but our hypotheses may perhaps gain statistical support.
Statistical theory is a complex of models imposing structure on the data set.
Although the data is partially determined by paradigm and theories, there remains in our observations a kernel of knowledge to be gleaned from the field of psychology. The course will consist of two modules. The first module is concerned with analysis of variance. It will emphasize the experimental method for controlling variables in order to test hypotheses. The second module is concerned with correlation and regression.