[tips] Are parachutes effective?

[sblack]

Smith and Pell report the results of a review and meta-analysis  
of randomized controlled trials of parachute use.

>From the Discussion:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a medical 
intervention justified by observational data must be in want of 
verification through a randomized controlled trial".

See:

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7429/1459#responses

Smith, C., & Pell, J. (2003). Hazardous journey: Parachute use 
to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational 
challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials. 
BMJ  2003;327:1459-1461.


Stephen

Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.  
Professor of Psychology, Emeritus   
Bishop's University   
e-mail:  sblack at ubishops.ca
2600 College St.
Sherbrooke QC  J1M 1Z7
Canada
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[tips] A Moment To Remember

[Mike Palij]

The NY Times' "On This Day" feature reminds us that on
March 16, 1968 the "My Lai Massacre" had occurred, see:
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0316.html#article 

One problem with looking at a single news article like this
is that it cannot tell one what happened as a result of the
event or other relevant contextual factors which were not 
known at the time of the event..  A Wikipedia entry (standard 
disclaimers apply) provides more details about the event, who 
was involved, and the aftermath, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai 
By the way, the U.S. Military codeword for the My Lai hamlet
was "Pinkville".  I point this out only to say that Oliver Stone
appears to preparing a  movie on the subject titled "Pinkville"
even though he covered somewhat similar material in "Platoon".

Alhtough Stanley Milgram has commented on the My Lai
massacre I'm not aware of many other psychological analyses
of what happened and why at My Lai.  Clearly, "obedience to
authority" had to play a big role (Lt. Calley's defense of "I was
only following orders", as made clear in the Wikipedia entry,
was no defense when provided at Nuremberg or the Tokyo
War Crimes Tribunials).  There are also issues of conformity (Asch),
diffusion of responsibility in groups (Latane & Darley), and
the power of roles and the situations (Zimbardo).  However,
there is the question of why, in face of these factors, certain
people like Hugh Thompson Jr, a helicopter pilot, refused to
participate in the killings and saved villagers.  Quoting from the 
Wikipedia article:

|Thompson then saw a group of civilians (again consisting of 
|children, women and old men) at a bunker being approached 
|by ground personnel. Thompson landed and told his crew that 
|if the U.S. soldiers shot at the Vietnamese while he was trying 
|to get them out of the bunker that they were to open fire at 
|these soldiers. Thompson later testified that he spoke with a 
|lieutenant (identified as Stephen Brooks of the 2nd Platoon) 
|and told him there were women and children in the bunker, 
|and asked if the lieutenant would help get them out. According 
|to Thompson, "he [the lieutenant] said the only way to get them 
|out was with a hand grenade". Thompson testified that he then 
|told Brooks to "just hold your men right where they are, and 
|I'll get the kids out". He found 12 to 16 people in the bunker, 
|coaxed them out and led them to the helicopter, standing with 
|them while they were flown out in two groups.
|
|Returning to My Lai, Thompson and other air crew members 
|noticed several large groups of bodies. Spotting some survivors 
|in the ditch Thompson landed again and one of the crew members 
|entered the ditch. The crew member returned with a bloodied but 
|apparently unharmed child who was flown to safety. The child 
|was thought to be a girl, but later investigation found that it was 
|a 4-year-old boy. Thompson then reported what he had seen to 
|his company commander, Major Frederic W. Watke, using terms 
|such as "murder" and "needless and unnecessary killings". 
|Thompson's reports were confirmed by other pilots and air crew.[22]
|
|For their actions Thompson was awarded the Distinguished Flying 
|Cross and his crew were awarded Bronze Star medals. In 1998, 
|their medals were replaced by the Soldier's Medal, "the highest the 
|US Army can award for bravery not involving direct conflict with 
|the enemy." The medal citations said they were being awarded "for 
|heroism above and beyond the call of duty while saving the lives 
|of at least 10 Vietnamese civilians during the unlawful massacre of 
|non-combatants by American forces at My Lai".[23] The veterans 
|also made contact with the survivors of My Lai.

Does anyone know of an up-to-date analysis of the My Lai event
that uses contemporary psychological theory?  Also, to what extent
is the My Lai event referred to in contemporary textbooks like 
introduction to psychology, social psychology, etc.?

-Mike Palij
New York University
m...@nyu.edu



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[tips] student's question

[michael sylvester]

Is it true that if you dream that you are falling from a cliff and hit the 
bottom then this is the point of death?
And I do have a follow-up question.

Michael "omnicentric" Sylvester,PhD
Daytona Beach,Florida
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Re: [tips] Are parachutes effective?

[Serafin, John]

I imagine that, in contrast to some of the other research recently discussed
here, the placebo effect might not be getting stronger in this field of
research?

John
-- 
John Serafin
Psychology Department
Saint Vincent College
Latrobe, PA 15650
john.sera...@email.stvincent.edu



> From: 
> Reply-To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)"
> 
> Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:46:34 -0400
> To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)"
> 
> Conversation: [tips] Are parachutes effective?
> Subject: [tips] Are parachutes effective?
> 
> Smith and Pell report the results of a review and meta-analysis
> of randomized controlled trials of parachute use.
> 
> From the Discussion:
> 
> "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a medical
> intervention justified by observational data must be in want of
> verification through a randomized controlled trial".
> 
> See:
> 
> http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7429/1459#responses
> 
> Smith, C., & Pell, J. (2003). Hazardous journey: Parachute use
> to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational
> challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials.
> BMJ  2003;327:1459-1461.
> 


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RE: [tips] Are parachutes effective?

[Shearon, Tim]

John
I wonder- it is an empirical question though (leave me out of the participant 
pool!). Perhaps if folks believed that they could do something (they can) to 
minimize the damage they might "try harder" (flap their arms, spread out more, 
etc). I do agree that the motivation isn't likely stronger! But belief and 
placebo have surprised us before (I hope that a degree of seriousness is 
perceived in conjunction with a bit of tongue inserted firmly in cheek). :) 
Likely, speculation is all we can have here though as I'm pretty sure that our 
IRB won't approve this experiment. 
Tim

-Original Message-
From: Serafin, John [mailto:john.sera...@email.stvincent.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 10:01 AM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: Re: [tips] Are parachutes effective?

I imagine that, in contrast to some of the other research recently discussed
here, the placebo effect might not be getting stronger in this field of
research?

John
-- 
John Serafin
Psychology Department
Saint Vincent College
Latrobe, PA 15650
john.sera...@email.stvincent.edu





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[tips] Careers Course Recommendations

[Bill Southerly]

TIPSters,

I will be teaching a new course in our department this fall that will explore 
career opportunities (both jobs & grad school) for psychology majors.  The 
course will be a 2 credit course and the students will be either seniors or 
soon to be seniors.  

I am looking for recommendations for the course.  The most pressing needs are 
recommendations of books and other reading materials since I will have to 
submit book orders soon.  However, I am hoping to receive recommendations for 
all aspects of the course.  All ideas are welcome.

Thanks in advance.

Bill 

Bill Southerly, PhD
Department of Psychology
Frostburg State University
Frostburg, MD 21532
301-687-4778
bsouthe...@frostburg.edu


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Re: [tips] Are parachutes effective?

[Serafin, John]

My tongue is as firmly planted in my cheek as is Tim's, but here's at least a 
partial placebo for this study

http://tinyurl.com/yjkjfp8

These folks are goof-balls (IMHO). Geez, I wouldn't want to be in either in the 
experimental group or the placebo group.

John
--
John Serafin
Psychology Department
Saint Vincent College
Latrobe, PA 15650
john.sera...@email.stvincent.edu




From: "Shearon, Tim" 
Reply-To: TIPS posts 
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:52:07 -0400
To: TIPS posts 
Subject: RE: [tips] Are parachutes effective?

John
I wonder- it is an empirical question though (leave me out of the participant 
pool!). Perhaps if folks believed that they could do something (they can) to 
minimize the damage they might "try harder" (flap their arms, spread out more, 
etc). I do agree that the motivation isn't likely stronger! But belief and 
placebo have surprised us before (I hope that a degree of seriousness is 
perceived in conjunction with a bit of tongue inserted firmly in cheek). :) 
Likely, speculation is all we can have here though as I'm pretty sure that our 
IRB won't approve this experiment.
Tim

-Original Message-
From: Serafin, John [mailto:john.sera...@email.stvincent.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 10:01 AM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: Re: [tips] Are parachutes effective?

I imagine that, in contrast to some of the other research recently discussed
here, the placebo effect might not be getting stronger in this field of
research?

John

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Re:[tips] Confessions of a Converted Lecturer

[Richard Hake]

Some subscribers to TIPS and TeachEdPsych might be interested in 
Eric Mazur's    engaging talk 
"Confessions of a Converted Lecturer" at the  University of Maryland 
on 11 November 2009.  The abstract reads:

"I thought I was a good teacher until I discovered my students were 
just memorizing information rather than learning to understand the 
material. Who was to blame? The students? The material? I will 
explain how I came to the agonizing conclusion that the culprit was 
neither of these. It was my teaching that caused students to fail! I 
will show how I have adjusted my approach to teaching and how it has 
improved my students' performance significantly."

That talk is now on UTube at 
; and the abstract, 
slides, and references - sometimes obscured in the UTube talk - are 
at  as a 4 MB pdf.

As of 16 March 2010, Eric's talk had been viewed by some 12,800 UTube fans!

In contrast, serious articles in the education literature, often read 
only by the author and a few cloistered academic specialists, usually 
create tsunamis in educational practice equivalent to those produced 
by a pebble dropped into the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

For other commentary critical of the passive-student lecture - staple 
of U.S. higher education -  see e.g.:

a. "Scholars at a Lecture" [Hogarth ((1822);

b. "The Lecture System in Teaching Science" [Morrison (1986)] - a 
MUST-READ all-time classic!;

c. "Science Lectures: A relic of the past? [Mazur (1996)];

d. "The College Lecture, Long Derided, May Be Fading" [Honan (2002)];

e. "Re: The college lecture may be fading" [Hake (2002)];

f. "Mary Burgan's Defense of Lecturing" [Hake (2007)];

g. "At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard" 
[Rimer (2009)];

h. "Farewell, Lecture?" [Mazur (2009)].

Yes, I'm aware of the seemingly lecture-friendly:

1. "A time for telling" [Schwartz & Bransford (1998)];

2. "Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An 
Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, 
Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching" [Kirschner, Sweller, & 
Clark (2006)].

Regarding Schwartz & Bransford (1998), their abstract ends:". . .the 
results indicate that there is a place for lectures and readings in 
the classroom IF STUDENTS HAVE SUFFICIENTLY DIFFERENTIATED DOMAIN 
KNOWLEDGE TO USE THE EXPOSITORY MATERIALS IN A GENERATIVE MANNER." 
[My CAPS.]

In response, I wrote in "Re: Constructivism in the APB classroom" 
[Hake (2008)]:

"But judging from the abysmally low pre-to-post test average 
normalized gains on tests of  conceptual understanding for 
traditional high-school and college mechanics courses (Hake 
(1998a,b)], it would appear that the traditional learning strategy 
given to students by instructors for learning physics . . . . does 
NOT supply students with 'sufficiently differentiated domain 
knowledge to use the expository materials in a generative manner'  [a 
loose translation from the psychologize might be: "sufficient 
conceptual understanding to benefit from the lecture."

Regarding Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark (2006), as indicated in 
"Language Ambiguities in Education Research" [Hake (2008)], their 
failure to *operationally* define pedagogical terms hinders any 
meaningful interpretation of their paper.  Quoting Klahr and Li 
(2005) "we suggest that those engaged in discussions about 
implications and applications of educational research should focus on 
clearly defined instructional methods and procedures, rather than 
vague labels and outmoded '-isms.' "


Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
Honorary Member, ARFU (Academic Reference Freaks United)




,


REFERENCES[Tiny URL's courtesy .]
Hake, R.R. 1998a. "Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A 
six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory 
physics courses," Am. J. Phys. 66: 64-74; online at 
 (84 kB).

Hake, R.R. 1998b. "Interactive-engagement methods in introductory 
mechanics courses," online at 
 (108 kB). A crucial 
companion paper to Hake (1998a).

Hake, R.R. 2002. "Re: The college lecture may be fading," online on 
the OPEN! POD archives at . Post of 21 
Aug 2002 15:34:25-0700 to Chemed-L, EvalTalk, Math-Learn, Math-Teach, 
Phys-L, PhysLrnR, and POD.

Hake, R.R. 2007. "Re: Mary Burgan's Defense of Lecturing," online on 
the OPEN! POD archives at < http://tinyurl.com/yftrgmt>. Post of 20 
Feb 2007 15:45:37-0800 to Chemed-L, PhysLrnR, & POD.

Hake, R.R. 2008a. 

Re: [tips] A Moment To Remember

[William Scott]

Moments to remember. My Lai, Kitty Genovese, the Ides of March. Is there 
something about the time of year? Of course April 19 and 20th is yet to come. 
Dates I always worry about. What do we know about anniversary violence?

Bill Scott




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Re: [tips] A Moment To Remember

[taylor]

Ok, what happened on April 19 and 20 that has little immediate relevance to me?

Annette

Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
University of San Diego
5998 Alcala Park
San Diego, CA 92110
619-260-4006
tay...@sandiego.edu


 Original message 
>Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:14:46 -0400
>From: "William Scott"   
>Subject: Re: [tips] A Moment To Remember  
>To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" 
>
>
>Moments to remember. My Lai, Kitty Genovese, the Ides of March. Is there 
>something about the time of year? Of course April 19 and 20th is yet to come. 
>Dates I always worry about. What do we know about anniversary violence?
>
>Bill Scott
>
>
>
>
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Re: [tips] Careers Course Recommendations

[roig-reardon]

Check out Tare Kuther's book: "Careers in Psychology: Opportunities for a 
Changing World: 



http://www.amazon.ca/Careers-Psychology-Opportunities-Changing-World/dp/0495600741/ref=sr_1_9/185-7064346-8174659?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268784474&sr=1-9
 . 



Also, either the Monitor or the Observer -I forget which- features a 
psychologist that has carved his/her own unique niche in other areas. Some of 
these short articles are very informative. 



Miguel 






- Original Message - 
From: "Bill Southerly"  
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" 
 
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 4:41:19 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: [tips] Careers Course Recommendations 






TIPSters, 

I will be teaching a new course in our department this fall that will explore 
career opportunities (both jobs & grad school) for psychology majors.  The 
course will be a 2 credit course and the students will be either seniors or 
soon to be seniors.  

I am looking for recommendations for the course.  The most pressing needs are 
recommendations of books and other reading materials since I will have to 
submit book orders soon.  However, I am hoping to receive recommendations for 
all aspects of the course.  All ideas are welcome. 

Thanks in advance. 

Bill 

Bill Southerly, PhD 
Department of Psychology 
Frostburg State University 
Frostburg, MD 21532 
301-687-4778 
bsouthe...@frostburg.edu 




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Re: [tips] A Moment To Remember

[Mike Palij]

On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:58:24 -0700, Annette Taylor wrote:
>Ok, what happened on April 19 and 20 that has little immediate 
>relevance to me?

I think that Bill Scott meant April 16 on which the Virginia Tech
shooting occurred; see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgina_tech_shooting

On April 20 the Columbing shooting took place; see"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre#April_20.2C_1999:_The_Massacre

Perhaps Bill was referring to something else that happened April 19;
among other things, it is Bicycle Day.  see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_Day#Bicycle_Day
Other things:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_19

Standard disclaimers still apply.

-Mike Palij
New York University
m...@nyu.edu




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Re: [tips] A Moment To Remember

[Mike Palij]

On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:58:24 -0700, Annette Taylor wrote:
>Ok, what happened on April 19 and 20 that has little immediate 
>relevance to me?

I apologize for not remembering but April 19 is the date of the
Oklahome City bombing; see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing

-Mike Palij
New York University
m...@nyu.edu






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Re: [tips] A Moment To Remember

[William Scott]

April 19 was also the Waco massacre which the Oklahoma bombing was a tribute 
to. April 20 Columbine was mentioned in diaries as a tribute to Adolph Hitler's 
birthday. There does seem to be some pattern of anniversary violence. Do we 
know anything about it?

Bill Scott


>>> "Mike Palij"  03/16/10 9:19 PM >>>
On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:58:24 -0700, Annette Taylor wrote:
>Ok, what happened on April 19 and 20 that has little immediate 
>relevance to me?

I apologize for not remembering but April 19 is the date of the
Oklahome City bombing; see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing

-Mike Palij
New York University
m...@nyu.edu






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