some things in statistics one learns to understand as they gain experience hands on ... for example, one can over time ... become rather proficient in using some software ... so as to easily do analysis for oneself ... or for helping others some principles can be "learned" by doing ... for example, even with the CLT ... one can get a rather good feel for what is going on via various simulations there are some cases when a derivation can teach you something ... getting the hang of how formulas work can be greatly facilitated by doing many ... and seeing what different kinds of data DO when you do calculations BUT, there are many things ... that experience seem to have NO impact on whatsoever ... nor can't for example ... just the notion of p values and what they mean ... i see no way that any amount of hands on experience CAN increase one's understanding of what these mean ... statistical significance is not a concept that one becomes more familiar with ... understands more deeply ... as the number of significance tests you do increases here is a concept that you take on faith ... someone TELLS you what it means ... you READ in a book about the interpretation of it ... now, some might say that one could simulate populations ... sampling distributions ... and set cut offs and given that you KNOW the null value, see how often you reject the null using that CV ... BUT, that still does not give you a feel for what p means with respect to evidence (that the p value is supposed to yield) AGAINST THE NULL so, while i am a firm advocate that one learns by doing ... and the more practice the better ... there are some concepts that practice makes NO difference in whatsoever ... not in learning any fundamental meaning of that is _________________________________________________________ dennis roberts, educational psychology, penn state university 208 cedar, AC 8148632401, mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list and remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES are available at http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ =================================================================
