B000286 - PSYCHOMETRY

Introduction research methods for psychology: research methods, data analysis, sampling and measurement theory. Graphical and numerical presentations for univariate and bivariate data. Introduction to probability theory and inferential statistics: probability distributions, sampling distributions, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing for bivariate data.

Primi C., Chiesi F. (2005). Introduzione alla psicometria. Laterza, Roma-Bari.
- Pedon A, Gnisci A. (2004). Metodologia della ricerca in psicologia. Il Mulino, Bologna (capp. 2,4,5,6).
Eserciziari (facoltativi):
- Chiesi F., Primi C. (2007). Introduzione alla psicometria: esercizi e quesiti. Cusl, Firenze.
- Areni A., Scalisi T.G., Bosco A. (2005). Esercitazioni di psicometria. Masson, Milano.

The course offers an introduction to measurement in Psychology: the concept of variable and levels of measurement are explained, the different way to gather data are presented, and how to arrange a data matrix is illustrated.
Moreover, the course is designed to give students theoretical and practical knowledge of the descriptive statistics which allow them to construct frequency distribution, to take measures of central tendency and variability, to standardize data, to construct and read graphs.
It’s a further aim of the course to introduce students to the basic principles of probability theory, to the mainly employed probability and sampling distributions. Then, starting from these prerequisites, hypothesis testing and confidence intervals are taught.
Finally, the course aims to ensure that students acquire the competence to report the results of descriptive and inferential statistic analyses.

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Psychological literature offers the framework to introduce statistic theoretical issues, that is statistics topics are presented through examples taken from different research area in psychology. Moreover, paper and pencil exercises (framed with psychological contents) are presented for each theoretical issues.

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written and oral exam

• Research and Measurement
o Research in psychology and statistics in psychology research
o Measurement and scale of measurement
o The structure of an Experiment
• Frequency Distributions
o Frequencies, cumulative frequencies, relative frequencies and percentages
o Frequency tables
o Graphs of frequency distribution
• Measures of Central Tendency
o The Mean, the Median, and the Mode
o Comparing the Mean, the Median and the Mode
• Measures of Variability
o Measures of variability based on deviations
• Measures of relative Standing
o Standard Scores
o Quartiles, Deciles, Percentiles
• Probability
o Basic concepts in probability
• Theoretical distribution
o The binomial distribution
o The normal distribution
• Sampling Distribution
o The distribution of sample mean
o The distribution of differences between two sample means
o The distribution of a mean difference
• Statistical inference
o The Hypothesis Testing
o Confidence Intervals
• Parametric Tests for One sample
o z-test for a sample mean
o t-test for a sample mean
• Parametric tests for two samples
o t-test for a difference between means: A between-subjects test
o t-test for a mean difference: A within-subjects test
• Association: Contingency and Correlation
o Using 2 to measure the association between categorical variables
o A measure of the strength of a relationship between metric variables: Pearson’s Product-Moment Correlation