Dear Professor Harb,

This is a petition by Psychology students who took PSYC 284, Statistical Analysis in Psychology, this past spring semester. Students have been facing difficulties in the course throughout the entire semester. This petition aims to provide the necessary information as justification to our call for a changing the instructor of the course, Professor Julien Besle.

The reasons are the following complaints:

• In the first day of the course January 24th, 2017, the instructor informs the students that he had just recently learned the material and the statistical program, R software, which led to poor explanation of the material. Besides that, the book we used was different from the explanation offered in class.
• According to the Course Syllabus, the students needed to complete 5 graded assignment throughout the semester. This meant that 3% was on each assignment, with a total of 15% on all five assignments. However, there were only 3 graded assignments and a 4th optional one. The students were only informed half-way through the semester that each of the assignments will be count as 5%.
• There were many other exercises that were not graded nor counted as part of the participation grade. These exercises had deadlines and answer keys were given after the deadline. Many students asked for them to be counted as participation, yet they were never accounted for.
• Multiple mistakes were drawn to the students’ attention in the explanation in class, exercises, assignments, and the 2nd midterm. The students received multiple emails, by the instructor regarding these mistakes, which led many to fall in confusion.

Due to the reasons stated above and other similar complaints, four students wrote an incomplete, five students failed, and some others either dropped or withdrew. We urge the administration of the department to take this petition with accordance to the ICE evaluations into serious consideration, given that the primary interest is the academic benefit of the students.