Jeff Ricker asks:
>My questions: Is statistics a prerequisite for research methods at your
>school? What are the arguments in favor of this? What are the arguments
>opposed to this?
>
We require a statistics course as a prerequisite for our research methods
course. Occassionally a student enrolls in both simultaneously and regets
making this choice. My department is considering adding a second
statistics course as a prerequisite (or corequisite) to the research
methods course. Those of us who advocate this move do so because the
current course that serves as a prerequisite does not get beyond the t-test
and students are expected to conduct ANOVAs on data generated in
experiments in the laboratory. (Getting this second course through as a
requirement is not going to be easy - and might not be possible in our
department at this time.)
As Jeff suggests, the research course is much more difficult to teach when
students have no background in statistics. However, with the minimal
background obtained in the elementary stats course that we require,
students still struggle with the statistical concepts discussed in the
methods course. Having stats as a requirement allows me to address the
conceptual issues (logic of hypothesis testing, design issues entailed by
considerations of statistical power) without spending time on computations:
they are supposed to have seen computations already. In the lab component
of the course, we show them how to use SPSS to do their computations and,
again, focus on interpetation of results.
Claudia
________________________________________________________
Claudia J. Stanny, Ph.D. e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of Psychology Phone: (850) 474 - 3163
University of West Florida FAX: (850) 857 - 6060
Pensacola, FL 32514 - 5751
Web: http://www.uwf.edu/psych/stanny.html
