Empirical Political Analysis
PS601 - Spring 2007
Test 1 Review Suggestions

Last Revised: March 19, 2007

The midterm exam will be a combination of fill-in-the-blank, matching, short answer, and perhaps some paragraph long definitions. Any form of question is possible - multiple choice & T/F included. There will simply be several different types. I would anticipate that the test will take the full hour and 15 minutes.

Material Covered:b

1. Elementary Statistics in Social Research. pp 1-190.
2. Quantitative Methods in Practise. Ch 1,2,3,4,9,10,11.
3. The Elementary Forms of Statistical Reason - Not Covered
4. Powerpoint slides
   1. 601Notes (All)
   2. Logic (All)
   3. Computer Architecture (All)
   4. Statistical Decision Making (All)
   5. 601Notes-Part 2 (1-6)
5. The Web pages linked in syllabus through Week 7.

Example Questions:

1. See Sample test...

2. Matching - may use choices more than once

3. Definitions - define the term in 1-3 sentences

I recommend that you place special emphasis on the following class topics.

• Logic
• Computer architecture
• Theory and the scientific method

The following is a very abridged list of specialized terms that I find important. These terms are pulled from your texts and the class notes. I recommend that you understand both their definitions and the context in which they are used. Note: this list is still under considerable development. It may change daily! The test may also include terms not listed here!

Theory, the scientific method, and Research Design

Analysis applied research basic research causal relationships conclusion confimation Data Collection deduction dependent variable

empirical referents empirical research Hypothesis independent variable Induction Measurement normative research observation Operationalization

panel design participant observation propositions qualitative research quantitative research random errors response rate Theory

Logic

~ • v AND conditional Conjunction Disjunction Disjunctive syllogism equivalence exclusive "or"

Hypothetical Syllogism implication inclusive "or" indicator Logic Modus Ponens Modus Tollens Negation NOT

Operators OR paradoxes Paradox of voting rules of inference Statement Tautology Truth Table values

Computer architecture

1K 1M 4, 8, 16, 24 bit color palette 64K accumulator address bus ASCII binary binary addition bit byte

central memory clock cycle computer arithmatic CPU data bus hexadecimal HTML Gigabyte Input MHz

nibble Notepad Output RAM register search engine Storage media NVu www.polsci.wvu.edu

Measures of Central Tendency and Dispersion

Absolute deviation average average deviation bimodal coefficient of variation deviation distribution frequency distribution kurtosis

leptokurtic mean median mesokurtic modality mode multimodal outlier

platykurtic population mean population standard deviation quartiles range skewness standard deviation unimodal variance

The Normal Curve and other distributions

Central Lmit Theorem log-normal

parameters probability density function

sampling distribution standard normal curve uniform

Graphs and Charts & Misc

bar graph box plot codebook codes column graph crosstabulation

frequency histogram line graph percentile pie graph

stem and leaf tables

Statistical Decison-making and Probability

alpha alternate hypothesis beta descriptive statistics

inferential statistics null hypothesis one-tailed test P(x) PDF

power of the test two-tailed test Type I error Type II error Z~N(0,1)

More to come - maybe!