When I was in graduate school, there was one area in the department that always had doctoral students coming to our lab in the experimental wing with stacks of old green-bar BMDP printouts. A common question was, "These are the results from my dissertation. Can you tell me what they mean?" Since I didn't help design the study or collect the data, the usual answer was, "No." BMDP, Minitab, SPSS, SAS, etc. do encourage learning data-entry skills. Add the GUI features, and you can spend all day clicking on analyses with no understanding of what they mean. I'm a calculator/Excel person. Sometimes, I even ask students to do complex calculations (like what is 1/2 of 1/3) in their heads!
Michael T. Scoles, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Psychology & Counseling University of Central Arkansas Conway, AR 72035 Phone: 501-450-5418 Fax: 501-450-5424 AVID: UCA dedicates itself to Academic Vitality, Integrity, and Diversity. >>> Christopher Green <chri...@yorku.ca> 10/1/2014 1:54 PM >>> In all honesty, I think there is nothing like plugging number into formulas to make one really understand then internal mechanics of statistical (and other mathematical/computational) procedures. If all you do is line the data up and out pops and answer on the other side, nothing was learned. It might as well have been magic. Chris *.. Christopher D Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P# Canada chri...@yorku.ca http://www.yorku.ca/christo ************... On Oct 1, 2014, at 10:07 AM, Marc Carter <marc.car...@bakeru.edu> wrote: > I'd agree, withte proviso that "by hand" allows things like excel. One can build formulas in excel and not have to do the tedious and time-wasting computations we all had to do (who thinks it's important to compute sums of squares with hand calculators anymore?). Time is better spent, as far as I can tell, talking about the mathematical objects (what *is* a sum of suqares? how does it behave?) than using up time calculating it. > > But, that's just my two cents. > > m > ________________________________________ > From: Christopher Green <chri...@yorku.ca> > Sent: Wednesday, October 1, 2014 8:40 AM > To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) > Subject: Re: [tips] Teach statistics before calculus > > That is good Jim, and I do the same thing, but it is only a start. Most of the stats actually used in psychological research is continuous, not discrete. > > As for stats courses that allow student to depend on computers, and never do hand calculations using formulas* this student have not learned statistics. They have learned data-entry. > > Chris > *.. > Christopher D Green > Department of Psychology > York University > Toronto, ON M3J 1P# > Canada > > chri...@yorku.ca > http://www.yorku.ca/christo > ************... > > On Oct 1, 2014, at 8:01 AM, Jim Clark <j.cl...@uwinnipeg.ca> wrote: > >> Hi >> >> One reason I like probability and binomial in intro stats (despite student protest) is that students can determine p distribution if H0 true, without calculus. And provides a concrete foundation for normal distribution, which binomial approaches as n increases. >> >> Also possible to use simulations to show the resulting probability distributions agree nicely with theoretical ps produced by calculus. >> >> Although calculus allows for alternative (deeper?) understanding of distributions, not clear that it is necessary. >> >> Of course, calculus has other benefits for stats, such as proof that SS is a minimum. >> >> Take care >> Jim >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >>> On Oct 1, 2014, at 5:42 AM, "Miguel Roig" <ro...@stjohns.edu> wrote: >>> >>> Chris, I believe that we have had discussions here about the practicality of teaching students to do hand calculations from formulas given the wide availability of statistical software. If so, do those who learn in classes in which the emphasis is primarily conceptual and software-based even taught how to look up p values in those tables? :) >>> >>> Miguel >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: Christopher Green [mailto:chri...@yorku.ca] >>> Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2014 6:15 PM >>> To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) >>> Subject: Re: [tips] Teach statistics before calculus >>> >>> Funny, just earlier today I was saying that the reason so many students have so much trouble with the (continuous) statistics that we teach in psychology is that we are essentially trying to teach them a topic that requires a knowledge of calculus without making them take calculus first. That's what all those tables in the back of the book are: they integrate over probability distributions so that we can lookup (rather than calculate directly) the proportion of area up to a given x-axis value (z, t, F, chi-square, etc.). >>> >>> So this guy might be right that stats is at the top of the pyramid, but only because it passes directly through calculus. >>> >>> Chris >>> ..... >>> Christopher D Green >>> Department of Psychology >>> York University >>> Toronto, ON M3J 1P# >>> Canada >>> >>> chri...@yorku.ca >>> http://www.yorku.ca/christo >>> ....................................... >>> >>>> On Sep 30, 2014, at 5:04 PM, Miguel Roig <ro...@stjohns.edu> wrote: >>>> >>>> It's only 3 minutes long and there is probably nothing here that you don't already know, but I thought it was worth sharing. >>>> >>>> http://www.ted.com/talks/arthur_benjamin_s_formula_for_changing_math_education >>>> >>>> Miguel >>>> ___________________________________________________________________________ >>>> Miguel Roig, Ph.D. >>>> Professor of Psychology >>>> St. John's University >>>> 300 Howard Avenue >>>> Staten Island, New York 10301 >>>> Voice: (718) 390-4513 >>>> Fax: (718) 390-4347 >>>> E-mail: ro...@stjohns.edu >>>> http://facpub.stjohns.edu/~roigm >>>> http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-5651 >>>> On plagiarism and ethical writing: http://ori.dhhs.gov/education/products/plagiarism/ >>>> ___________________________________________________________________________ >>>> --- >>>> You are currently subscribed to tips as: chri...@yorku.ca. >>>> To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=430248.781165b5ef80a3cd2b14721caf62bd92&n=T&l=tips&o=38783 >>>> or send a blank email to leave-38783-430248.781165b5ef80a3cd2b14721caf62b...@fsulist.frostburg.edu >>>> >>> >>> >>> --- >>> You are currently subscribed to tips as: ro...@stjohns.edu. >>> To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=1632838.7e62b84813297f170a6fc240dab8c12d&n=T&l=tips&o=38787 >>> or send a blank email to leave-38787-1632838.7e62b84813297f170a6fc240dab8c...@fsulist.frostburg.edu >>> >>> --- >>> You are currently subscribed to tips as: j.cl...@uwinnipeg.ca. >>> To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13251.645f86b5cec4da0a56ffea7a891720c9&n=T&l=tips&o=38803 >>> or send a blank email to leave-38803-13251.645f86b5cec4da0a56ffea7a89172...@fsulist.frostburg.edu >> >> --- >> You are currently subscribed to tips as: chri...@yorku.ca. >> To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=430248.781165b5ef80a3cd2b14721caf62bd92&n=T&l=tips&o=38805 >> or send a blank email to leave-38805-430248.781165b5ef80a3cd2b14721caf62b...@fsulist.frostburg.edu >> > > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: marc.car...@bakeru.edu. > To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13029.76c7c563b32ad9d8d09c72a2d17c90e1&n=T&l=tips&o=38811 > or send a blank email to leave-38811-13029.76c7c563b32ad9d8d09c72a2d17c9...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > > > > The information contained in this e-mail and any attachments thereto ("e-mail") > is sent by Baker University ("BU") and is intended to be confidential and for the > use of only the individual or entity named above. The information may be > protected by federal and state privacy and disclosures acts or other legal rules. > If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are notified > that retention, dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail is strictly > prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error please immediately notify > Baker University by email reply and immediately and permanently delete this > e-mail message and any attachments thereto. Thank you. > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: chri...@yorku.ca. > To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=430248.781165b5ef80a3cd2b14721caf62bd92&n=T&l=tips&o=38813 > or send a blank email to leave-38813-430248.781165b5ef80a3cd2b14721caf62b...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: micha...@uca.edu. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=357701.a768e95c4963686e69b47febf8aa657a&n=T&l=tips&o=38822 or send a blank email to leave-38822-357701.a768e95c4963686e69b47febf8aa6...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@mail-archive.com. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=38824 or send a blank email to leave-38824-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
