Objectives of the course are to introduce concepts related to the problem of measurement in psychology and to provide the basic elements on statistical techniques useful for understanding data analysis in psychological research.
Course Prerequisites
No specific prerequisites are required.
Teaching Methods
Lectures and classroom exercises.
Assessment Methods
Learning is tested through a 1-hour written examination consisting of questions of various types: 1) True/False questions 2) Open questions 3) exercises designed to test understanding of the theory.
Examples of exam questions are presented during the lectures.
Texts
Carlo Chiorri, Fondamenti di Psicometria, III edizione, Mc Graw-Hill. (2020) Lecturer's notes.
Contents
The course includes the presentation of the basic elements of psychometric theory and research methodology in psychology (psychological scales and measurement instruments, validity, reliability), descriptive statistics (definition of various types of variables, measures of central tendency, position indices, measures of variability and standardization of measures; inferential statistics (hypothesis testing for one and two samples, difference between statistical significance and effect size), theoretical foundations of the general linear model (analysis of variance for independent samples) and measures of relationship between variables (chi-square test for contingency tables, correlation, linear regression); factor analysis.
