Notes on Biostat Exam 2
- We have done our best to create a fair, consistent, and accurate answer
key. We look carefully at each
response. This takes many hours, but I feel this is are primary from of communication, given
the large n of the class. I
hope you will review your exams carefully. This is a good learning
opportunity.
- I believe the value of a college education is in its
encouragement of higher levels of thinking. Can we speak of a moral obligation to be
intelligent? I think so, and I believe you are all capable of developing
your scholarship. The requires commitment.
It also requires
more than a mechanical or formulaic approach. This is why I spend some
time setting up questions and establishing terminology before setting upon
answers.
- Beware the quick answer
which is
- the right answer to the wrong
question.
- I will describe in lecture a good example of the Law of the Farm
I observed in a couple of students.
- What I expect from each of you:
- Attendance (lectures & labs)
- Attentiveness
- Diligence
- Labs completed before HW completed
- HW completed before the last minute
- Indicators of poor performance - and what to do about it
- Missing points on Lab Workbook - physical presence in lab;
diligence; start lab early
- Missing more than 4 point on short answer exams - attentiveness to definitions and
concepts, memorization of definitions, focus on concepts
- Missing more than 7 points on open ended exams - better Procedure
notebook preparation; stress-reduction; more practice of HW exercises
- Your first awareness of an issue will to a large extent determine the
quality of thought thereafter. Make small and fine distinctions at
inception. Avoid jumping to the answer too quickly. Understand
the context before seeking solutions. Analyze context carefully.
- Example 1: Question 1 in Part B asked about the sampling distribution
of means from your classmates (lab 5). It did not ask about your sample
mean as such. Many students proceeded to tell me about their data, which
was irrelevant.
- Example 2: What does the phrase "sigma known" really mean?
Some students still think that if a problem provides the standard
deviation, then sigma is known. They fail to make the distinction that
if the standard deviation was calculated from a data set, sigma is not
known. (By definition, any standard deviation that comes from a sample
is not sigma.)
- Strong correlation between HW diligence and test performance (r = 0.67,
p < .0005)
- Results were STRONG, with a median of 89