Final examination information

If a student misses the exam due to illness or other unavoidable circumstances they can sit a supplementary exam which will contain only an individual component, with no group component (following University guidelines that the supplementary exam does not need to be the same format as the original exam). If a student has special circumstances such as the need for an individual testing room, or a longer testing time, they will sit the individual exam at the same time as the rest of the group, but in their own room. They may start the exam earlier to enable them to finish the individual component with enough time to make their way to the group exam room to complete the group component of the assessment.

Students who are unable to sit an examination must advise the Honours administrator (Ms Donna Keeley, 9850 8113, ask@mq.edu.au) and submit an Application for Special Consideration form (supporting documentation from a medical or health care professional clearly stating the reasons for the absence from the exam must be attached to your submission). All documentation must be submitted to Donna Keeley no later than 24 hours after the date of the exam. The only exception to not sitting an examination at the designated time is because of documented illness or unavoidable disruption. In these circumstances you may wish to consider applying for Special Consideration.

If a Supplementary Examination is granted as a result of the Special Consideration process, the examination will held one week after the original examination date. The format of a supplementary examination is at each unit convener’s discretion and is subject to change from the original final examination.

Supplementary Exams are only offered to students who have satisfactorily completed all other assessments for the unit and were unable to sit the final exam because of documented illness or unavoidable disruption.

You are advised that it is Macquarie University policy not to set early examinations for individuals or groups of students. All students are expected to ensure that they are available until the end of the teaching semester, which is the final day of the official examination period.

Research proposal form information

Penalties will be levied for late submission of the assignment: Late submission of the research proposal will attract a penalty of 5% of the maximum mark for every day late. In other words, the assignment is worth 40%, so a penalty of 5% x 40 = 2 will be applied. 2 marks are subtracted from whatever the student received for the report for each day late.

Requests for extensions for assignments are granted by the Honours Administrator, Donna Keeley.

Fit to sit model

Students who sit an exam and/or in-class test or otherwise submit an assessment, declare themselves fit to do so and will not be eligible to apply for special consideration unless there is evidence that (a) they were unfit to make reasonable judgement on their fitness to undertake the assessment, due to mental illness or other exceptional circumstances; or they were taken ill during the assessment (in the case of an examination or test), and this can be independently corroborated.

Required and recommended texts / materials

One required text:

• Field (2017). Discovering Statistics Using IBM Statistics. 5^th edition. Sage.

Please note that the previous edition of the textbook (4^th edition) will be perfectly acceptable for use in this unit. Page numbers may differ from those noted for the most recent version, but the content covered will be equivalent.

Two handbooks authored by Dr. Alan Taylor, both of which can be downloaded from iLearn:

• Introduction to IBM SPSS Statistics (“Intro”)
• Using the GLM Procedure in SPSS (“GLM”)

Two additional readings by Dr. Alan Taylor, also downloaded from iLearn:

• Taylor, A. Notes on Using the SPSS manova Procedure for Power Calculations
• Taylor, A. A Brief Introduction to Factor Analysis, which supplements Field Chapter 17.

Additional readings, available from the Library or from iLearn.

• Lachin, J.M. (1981). Introduction to sample size determination and power analysis for clinical trials. Controlled Clinical Trials, 2, 93-113.
• Chapters 10 and 14 from the textbook: Keith, T. (2006). Multiple regression and beyond. Allyn & Bacon: Boston.
• David Kenny's web page, http://davidakenny.net/cm/mediate.htm

Classes

Thirteen weeks: 12 x 2-hour lecture and 1-hour demonstration, with final examination held in the Week 13 lecture slot.

Lectures will involve demonstrations of SPSS procedures, using various examples. Students are encouraged to bring their own laptop with SPSS installed, but this is not required. Theoretical issues will also be discussed during the lectures.

While there will be Echo recordings, the lectures are designed for face-to-face format. Due to the interactive nature of the lectures in which students are encouraged to ask questions as we go, on occasion additional notes may be written on a whiteboard, or discussed verbally. There is no guarantee these will be captured by the recording. Further, if a recording fails, no replacement recordings will be uploaded as this unit is designed for internal mode only, with the assumption that students are able to attend classes.

The only exception to this is Week 13, which will be the final exam.

Practical exercises will be set each week for students to undertake in their own time. The following week there will be a demonstration session in addition to the lecture in which the lecturer will show (live) how they would approach the exercises. Students are encouraged to bring their own laptop computers to demonstration sessions to follow-along. Questions are encouraged during this session in particular. 

Students are expected to complete readings prior to attending the lecture, and they are expected to participate in class discussions.