Claudia Stanny wrote, "I once served on a committee for a master's thesis in which the student, disappointed that his findings produced non-significant p-values, tried some alternative analyses in SPSS. He showed up one day, beaming, with an output that he thought indicated he had a "significant 3 factor solution" for his data. Problem: his data were based on a factorial design. [Perhaps that explains why he thought a factor analysis would be a good idea. (sigh)]"
I'll go you one better, Claudia. I did a post doc in a bio dept. in which the graduate statistics course was, basically, "here's how you use SPSS" (or whatever program they were using in 1976). Although I had been, at best, a mediocre statistics student, I because the ersatz departmental statistician. The worst moment was when a doctoral candidate had trouble understanding why he couldn't do an ANOVA on his data when one of the groups had an N=1. Edward I. Pollak, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Psychology West Chester University of Pennsylvania http://home.comcast.net/~epollak/ Husband, father, grandfather, bluegrass fiddler, banjoist & biopsychologist............... in approximate order of importance --- 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=38849 or send a blank email to leave-38849-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
