Hey there, I’m Samantha! Welcome to the PSY310 blog. Who am I:1. Your TA for the semester2. A grad student in the psychology department3. An easy-going and warm-hearted human being who is always willing to help (Office hour: Tuesday 12-1pm, or shoot an email to make an appointment; Office: Greene Hall 458) What you can… Read more

1. Generalization mode: Researchers are attempting to make External Validity (this study to the world at large) crutial. That is, to generalize the findings to a population, or other situations. Ecological Validity (lab to the real world) is also important. The key is to have a representative sample. 2. Theory-testing mode: Researchers are trying to… Read more

1. Inflated Type I error: For each test, there’s a α=5% probability that the difference between groups is not meaningful (i.e. due to chance). If we have n groups to compare, and we keep running t-tests, there will be 1-(1-α)n chance to make a Type I error! 2. To control for Type I error: Make… Read more

1. When the probability that your results are due to chance/sampling variation is small enough (p <.05), we reject the null, then these results are called statistically significant. We also mentioned statistically significance during Class #14 Correlation. 2. T-test: tells us the difference between the means of two groups, and an estimate of what differences are… Read more

1. Null Hypothesis (H0, pronounced as H-nought): The independent variable will not have an effect; there’s no difference between treatment group and control group. Alternative Hypothesis (H1): The independent variable has an effect. When we try to confirm the hypothesis, we are statistically testing the Null Hypothesis. We assume H0 is true (there is no… Read more