Final examination information

This will be a 2-stage exam, with a team-work component. The exam will be a mixture of multiple choice and “fill in the blank” short answer questions. The procedure is such that you will first sit the exam individually, and then immediately afterwards in the same time slot you will do the exam again in groups of approximately four. The exams will then be graded such that 90% of the score comes from the individual attempt, and 10% from the group attempt, unless the individual attempt is better than the group attempt, in which case the student will get 100% of their score from the individual attempt.

I will be allocating all students to groups. I will post the group allocations to iLearn in the week prior to the exam. All allocations will be completely random and based on a random number generator.

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 a longer testing time, they will sit the individual exam at the same time as the rest of the group, but they may start the exam earlier to enable them to finish the individual component with enough time to commence the group component with the rest of their group.

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

The Research Proposal Form is designed to help you with the process of planning your empirical project. It consists of a series of short answer questions, to which you will be required to write a response. Responses may include Stata syntax. The questions contained in the form will be made available in Week 1. All submissions are to be through Turnitin in iLearn.

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.

Textbooks

There are two textbooks for this unit, both available through the Library:

Tabachnick, B., & Fidell, L. (2019). Using Multivariate Statistics (7th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.

Keith, T. Z. (2019). Multiple regression and beyond: an introduction to multiple regression and structural equation modeling (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Please note that the previous editions of the textbooks will be acceptable for use in this unit. Page numbers may differ from those noted for the most recent editions, and you should check carefully with the library holdings of the prescribed editions that the content is equivalent.

Additional reading

There is an additional reading for the week on power and sample size:

Lachin, J. M. (1981). Introduction to sample size determination and power analysis for clinical trials. Controlled Clinical Trials, 2, 93-113.

Classes

Thirteen weeks: 12 x 2-hour lecture and 1-hour demonstration, with final examination held in the Week 13 lecture slot. The lectures will be run online, via Zoom. 

Lectures will involve demonstrations of Stata procedures, using various examples. Theoretical issues will also be discussed during the lectures.

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. 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.