I am not aware of any research on the discipline-specific stats
course, but would also be interested in hearing of some. We have a psych
stats class that is one of the more popular on campus. We argue that stat
should be taught to our students with relevance to psychological research
methods. There are basic math and algebra requirements for all the stat
courses on campus--altho individual faculty seem to vary in checking on
this. We do not focus on explaining the underlying arithmetic, but on the
uses and conceptual ideas of means, std. deviations, t-tests, ANOVAs, etc.
We have recently incorporated a SAS lab component as part of the class due
to us having a wonderful SAS expert who has prepared some user-friendly
texts on the SAS system for us. We have a popular stats teacher who seems
to minimize the usual anxiety associated with such a class. Note, that
nowhere have I said that the class is effective. We are in the
(never-ending?)process of developing assessment goals and criteria for our
curriculum, and I will post if and when we learn anything from this ;-)
OUR PROBLEMS: Our stat teacher is getting tired of stats, few of
the faculty want to tackle the class as we all are involved with other
things, other depts want us to teach THEIR students (even grad students)
stat, few of our new faculty are really (another post this?) prepared to
teach stats. Most of us old-timers think stats in psych is important to
the psych curriculum and we have found stats from other departments
(biostats, soc-stats) to be irrelevant to our research or lacking in
coverage. Students here are supposed to take Experimental psych (research
methods) after stats and then they may take their two required labs (one
from core A--physio, comparative, learning,
sensation-perception; or core B--personality, social, motivation). Let's
just say I have not been singing in the hallways over the performance of
our students in the labs, even when they just finished with the stat and
experimental sequence. But I have no formal evidence, I suspect they do
better than if they had stats someplace else, and the purpose of our labs
is to give them that hands-on practice in implementing their knowledge.
One further note: presently stats classes can be taken to satisfy
our university general educ. requirements. We have to decide whether we
want to continue this. It does put strain on our stat offerrings--we
presently offer stat each semester with two SAS labs. Will stat go
the way of animal labs? We have a fine animal lab too! Just one
rambling viewpoint, Gary Peterson
Gerald L. (Gary) Peterson, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
Saginaw Valley State University
University Centre, MICH 48710
Phone: 517-790-4491
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
fax: 517-790-7656
On Tue, 9 Feb 1999, Esther Strahan wrote:
> Dear Tipsters,
>
> Our college is in the process of considering whether to replace our
> undergrad stats class (currently taught in the math dept) with a biostats,
> psychstats, businessstats, etc.
>
> I'm wondering whether any of you are familiar with outcome research
> suggesting better student outcomes with discipline-specific stats courses
> than with a general stats course. This will involve a lot of changes and I
> want to make sure the outcomes would justify the effort and financial
> resources allocated.
>
> Also, if you have a psych stats course in your own program, how do you like
> it? How much do your majors seem to retain by the time they get to their
> research methods course(s)?
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Esther
>
>
>
>
> Esther Yoder Strahan, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor of Psychology
> Heidelberg College
> 310 E. Market St.
> Tiffin, OH 44883
> (419) 448-2238
> fax (419) 448-2236
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
