RSCH 605 Interdisciplinary Quantitative Research

A non-calculus based quantitative research course that supports interdisciplinary research requiring statistical analysis.

The purpose of this course is to teach students pursuing a master’s degree in interdisciplinary studies what they need to know to perform a quantitative research study. This includes identifying the key elements of the study and performing the statistical tests in SPSS, It also includes interpreting the results of the tests and reporting them in an appropriate format. This is a 600 level master’s level course and is not intended to teach basic statistics. It is assumed that candidates have taken basic courses in statistics during their undergraduate programs. At the conclusion, the candidate should be able to write up a result section for a quantitative master’s thesis. The focus will be to help candidates select the correct statistical test, run the assumptions tests, reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis and apply what they have learned in actual practice.

Textbook readings and lecture presentations

No details available.

Course Requirements Checklist

After reading the Course Syllabus and Student Expectations, the student will complete the related checklist found in the Course Overview.

There are homework assignments in the MyLabs software based on Aron’s “Statistics for the Behavioral and Social Science” every week of the course, except for the last week.

• Statistical Foundations
• Hypothesis Tests and T-Tests
• Independent T-Tests
• Intro to Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)
• Correlation and Prediction (Regression)
• Effect Size and Statistical Power
• Chi-Squared and Other Non-Parametric Tests

There are quizzes in the MyLabs software based on Aron’s “Statistics for the Behavioral and Social Science” every week of the course except for the last week. Each quiz is based on the HW in MyLabs for that week.

• Statistical Foundations 
• Hypothesis Tests and T-Tests
• Independent T-Tests
• Intro to Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)
• Correlation and Prediction (Regression)
• Effect Size and Statistical Power
• Chi-squared and Other Non-Parametric Tests

In Weeks 2 – 7 there is an assignment to perform and report on a different type of statistical study. There is a Practice Report in each of these weeks to aid students in learning how to perform the analysis in SPSS and make the reports. Each week’s report closely matches the work required in that week’s Practice Report, except that a different data set is used.

• Dependent (Paired) T-Test Report
• Independent T-Test Report
• One-Way ANOVA Report 
• Linear Correlation Test Report
• Simple Linear Regression Test Report
• Chi-Square Test of Independence Report

Quiz: Final Exam

This comprehensive exam will cover the material learned throughout the course. Students will answer provided Final Exam Questions on a Final Exam Answer Sheet.  All of the questions require objective answers and involve various question parts. There are no opinions involved. There are 8 questions worth 15 points each.