(Taken Fall 2023)
Professor Smyth is a sweet guy, but his class is the third circle of hell. Tests are completely randomly nitpicked from readings- specific wordings and all. It's impossible to prepare for them in any meaningful way. Yeah, he's nice, but his in-class lectures are slow and boring, and he confuses himself too. He's allergic to answering questions in a coherent and understandable way. He'll drop your lowest test score for your iClicker score, which is nice of him, because you'll REALLY need it.
I took AP Stats in high school, and honestly, most of the material covered in this class was the exact same. That being said, I got a 5 on the AP Stats exam and did much worse in this class- solely because of Smyth. He's very available to his students but so senile it doesn't even matter. Severe warnings in this class- only take if you have to, for a psych major or minor. Don't bother otherwise. Save yourself.

This course is unfortunately not the quality I'd expect of UVA. The material is poorly taught, even though Professor Smyth is a nice man, the terminology is not taught well, so you will often be confused about what exactly he is talking about or asking you to calculate. The number of quizzes is a little ridiculous, and they'll often only have 3 questions, so if you miss one, you will receive a 66.67% on that quiz. Those add up to an unpleasant grade. If not necessary, I don't recommend this course.
Questions will be drawn seemingly randomly from direct wording in reading, additional videos, and lectures, requiring precise recollection of wording from the many hours of possibilities.
Statistics does not need to be difficult, but this course managed to make it so.

Smyth's course may be more difficult than the other professors' courses, but you actually learn something in the process. With reading quizzes (or clicker questions) every class period that accumulates to about 20% of your overall grade, you are forced to comprehend the reading material and then use it to pass the quizzes. The professor is extremely nice and generous, but his lectures are also pretty boring and dry. So, the bottom line is that if you are a hopeful PSYC major, this professor will better prepare you for the more advanced statistical courses like Psych 3006 that you will have to take. He might be boring and slow, but he knows how to prepare you for success in the PSYC field.

I didn't really enjoy this class since it was very stat heavy (which I have no background in). Other than that, it was somewhat interesting since it breaks down psych studies and helps you understand them a lot better. It was very reading heavy though and for me difficult. In terms of Professor Smyth, I thought he was a really great person and very knowledgeable. His lectures are more supplements to the readings to really emphasize what he wants you to take away. He does talk a bit slow though so I would watch them x1.5-2. Highly recommend doing his extra credit work and optional homeworks, it really pays off. I didn't do too well on his exams since there weren't that many questions, so points mattered, but was able to get an overall A- from his daily quizzes and extra credit points. I really liked Smyth since he would mention racial inequality a lot, and was very welcoming to all genders -- something we don't see very often even now. He is also very lenient with some of his deadlines, and would give points back/ curve often! I personally wouldn't recommend the class, but am looking forward to taking future classes with him!

Smyth is really nice, although his lectures are a bit dull and slow (I watched them at 2x speed). There are daily quizzes (19% of final grade), three exams (19% each), and a cumulative final exam (24%). You get credit for answering quiz questions even if your answer is wrong, and because there are so many quizzes each individual quiz counts for so little and they aren’t a big deal. The exams aren’t too bad if you study, and Smyth provides optional homework to help with studying (DO THE OPTIONAL HW, IT WILL HELP YOU UNDERSTAND THE MATH). There are also a lot of extra credit opportunities (ex. surveys, daily extra credit quizzes). This class wasn’t my favorite, but it was informative and helpful for the psych major and it could have been worse.

Prof Smyth is a good guy. People who like slow lectures will like his class, people who like intense class with talkshow style will probably hate it. I watch his video with a 1.5-2.0 speed because I took well notes from textbook, and video adds on to it and he practically explains the concept using great examples. His class looks like a lot, but it's actually not. Quizzes and optional homework are helpful in preparing test. There are also many extra credits available.
Prof Smyth is great. He is generous with quiz and test scores, go to his office hour, if you find a problem he gives full point back if you explained well why you think your different answer should be accepted, he also give partial point back, he also curve a lot. He's also understanding about schedule conflict. Personalitywise, he care about social problems and inequality faced by minority. He introduced researches on gender bias, social class, and racial bias to inform on stereotypes. Especially, he's the first instructor I've had in my life who would actually mention and care about Asian as a minority with other minority groups. I felt true diversity in his class.
Some advise would be to pay attention to readings he requires because he cares about research ethics and good practice.

This course was fine if you need it as a prerequisite for psych or cogsci, but I would not recommend taking it unless you have to. Your grade was based off of three midterms, a final, and clicker points. If your clicker score was higher than your lowest midterm, he swapped in that grade at the end of the semester. Smyth also offered a significant amount of extra credit (up to 3% added to your final grade) which was mostly earned through extra credit clicker points and participation in class. He also curves the exams so your grade will usually end up fine in the end. However, his exams were INCREDIBLY specific pulling sometimes single sentences that we never went over in class from the textbook readings. There were about 40 pages of reading per class (three times a week) that you had to do not only to score decently on clicker questions and extra credit, but to have any hope on the exam. Math and application on the exams was straightforward and pretty easy, but the section based on exact lines of the textbook was stupid hard and super frustrating. Lecture participation was necessary if you wanted the clicker points, but I felt like coming to class was pointless. He almost never lectured on anything concrete that you could take notes on and never elaborated on the difficult part of the material. I took STAT 2120 last semester, and I don't think I would have understood the stats concepts the way they were presented in this class if I didn't have that background. Overall Smyth is a nice guy, but the class is not enjoyable.

I ended up having to withdraw from this course. Professor Smyth is extremely nice and considerate, but his lectures are so incredibly boring and hard to follow. I don't have much of a statistics background and found it hard to learn the math concepts from the lectures, as well as the textbook. I recommend if you are good at math/statistics, but otherwise, this might not be the class for you.

I don't know like Smyth seems like a nice guy he's funny but he doesn't do a great job teaching stats. I knew STATS beforehand and his explanations are really muddled. Good use of clickers - has daily quizes and extra credit questions (doesnt use them as attendence tool). First exam was a joke but subsequent exams weren't. Readings for every class that he quizzes on every class. I didn't do them though because I'm stubborn. You should do them. Take only if you have to.

For reference, I did not do super well in the class. I came in without a stat background, but that wasn't the reason why. I think the bottom line of what I learned from this semester with Smyth was that doing his optional homeworks as you learned the material really helped as you went along. Memorize the wording of his essay responses. But also (especially for the final) try to understand what the relationships are between certain variables in the formulas. It's really just big concepts there. For the final, review his powerpoints unless you really don't understand the math (then you can go back in the textbook). But all of the major stuff will be on there. Also, make sure to watch the videos that he includes in the powerpoints since he heavily emphasizes those in the tests.