Re: What to study next
For the design of the study a good early introduction is "Conducting Meaningful Experiments" By Bausell, Sage Publications. It emphasizes a lot of the activities that should take place before any data is collected with a focus on forming meaning hypotheses. It also includes an overview on good experimental practices for the social sciences. Michael At 07:44 AM 02/29/2000 -0800, Ward Soper wrote: After one learns to do the textbook problems, as in Freund's Mathematical Statistics, where should one turn to learn what tests to use in various situations and how to design studies? Can anyone suggest some good texts or other resources? Ward Soper -- === This list is open to everyone. Occasionally, less thoughtful people send inappropriate messages. Please DO NOT COMPLAIN TO THE POSTMASTER about these messages because the postmaster has no way of controlling them, and excessive complaints will result in termination of the list. For information about this list, including information about the problem of inappropriate messages and information about how to unsubscribe, please see the web page at http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ === === This list is open to everyone. Occasionally, less thoughtful people send inappropriate messages. Please DO NOT COMPLAIN TO THE POSTMASTER about these messages because the postmaster has no way of controlling them, and excessive complaints will result in termination of the list. For information about this list, including information about the problem of inappropriate messages and information about how to unsubscribe, please see the web page at http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ === *** Michael M. Granaas Associate Professor[EMAIL PROTECTED] Department of Psychology University of South Dakota Phone: (605) 677-5295 Vermillion, SD 57069 FAX: (605) 677-6604 *** All views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of South Dakota, or the South Dakota Board of Regents. === This list is open to everyone. Occasionally, less thoughtful people send inappropriate messages. Please DO NOT COMPLAIN TO THE POSTMASTER about these messages because the postmaster has no way of controlling them, and excessive complaints will result in termination of the list. For information about this list, including information about the problem of inappropriate messages and information about how to unsubscribe, please see the web page at http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ ===
Re: What to study next
[rearranging this note, to put the posts into order, earliest first. ]
At 07:44 AM 02/29/2000 -0800, Ward Soper wrote:
After one learns to do the textbook problems, as in Freund's
Mathematical Statistics, where should one turn to learn what tests to
use in various situations and how to design studies? Can anyone suggest
some good texts or other resources?
===
dennis roberts wrote:
william trochim's research methods knowledge base is a good place to start
... to get ideas
http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/kb/
On 29 Feb 2000 17:48:07 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Paul Gardner) wrote:
George. M. Diekhoff, Basic Statistics for the Social and Behavioral
Sciences, Prentice Hall, 1996, has an excellent chapter at the end which
presents a decision tree. This summarises the various statistical
procedures in the text and helps learners to determine which statistics
are appropriate under various conditions.
=
- Pardon; I haven't seen Diekoff, but 'decision tree' sounds too
cheap. There is certainly a place for a mechanical framework of tests
and procedures; but I read the original question as less particular
than that, and more general ("how to design studies"); and the first
answer, that way, too.
An enormous decision tree may give the right technical answer to 100%
of the narrow questions, but -- since it takes knowledge to frame the
right question -- that will be a misleading answer, I would guess, for
1/3 of the naive questioners, at least. People just can't tell you
what they never thought to ask, concerning
'reliability' (of various kinds);
'dependence' (ditto);
'shape of the distribution';
'outliers'; and
'What numbers are meaningful when we use this measurement?' or,
'What transformations might be useful?'
(I am still answeriing the big question, Why can't a computer give us
all the stats advice that we need? So far, no one has programmed a
computer with 10,000 well-classified examples)
If they have not learned the whole statistical vocabulary, they won't
be able to argue persuasively that their own answers are correct. And
you can't thoroughly learn the vocabulary until you are expert enough
to know something about all the available techniques.
In addition to the statistics, there are particular problems in each
area about their own sorts of statistical designs. To learn what to
do in various situations, I think you have to *read*, you have to be
exposed to a large number of various situations. You have to read
some good examples, and you have to read criticisms which include
examples that were not-so-good.
--
Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html
===
This list is open to everyone. Occasionally, less thoughtful
people send inappropriate messages. Please DO NOT COMPLAIN TO
THE POSTMASTER about these messages because the postmaster has no
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Re: What to study next
I agree with with Rich Ulrich's comments, but bear in mind I was only
answering the original query, which was for a good text. I find
Diekhoff useful as an additional reference in my introductory stats
course (it's not the text I use, which is Runyon, Haber, Pittenger and
Coleman.)
Diekhoff's actual decision trees occupy less than four pages of a 23
page chapter. The decision trees are elaborated with extensive
discussion of the purpose of an analysis, the nature of the research
question, the number of variables involved, the kind of data
collected... Very few statistics texts contain this kind of material.
As I teach my course (one semester, 13 3-hour sessions) I continually
link new statistical tests to the Diekhoff decision tree. I also give
homework and run a workshop in which students are given a wide variety
of research scenarios (sample data, explicit or implicit research
questions) and ask them to consider which statistical test or tests
would be appropriate. Obviously this doesn't instantly turn all my
students into expert designers and statisticians, but they certainly
display good competence in getting the majority of tasks right. This is
in marked contrast to students who have never been asked to do such
things, and learn stats by simply doing exercises from textbooks and who
have never been asked to decide on appropriate procedures when given an
unfamiliar scenario.
Since my course is only an introduction, we cover only a limited number
of statistical procedures, and obviously there are dozens or hundreds of
others. But I think the procedure I use encourages the students to read
and reflect on research situations, and frame the question, "How might
this research question be answered?"
Paul Gardner
Rich Ulrich wrote:
[rearranging this note, to put the posts into order, earliest first. ]
At 07:44 AM 02/29/2000 -0800, Ward Soper wrote:
After one learns to do the textbook problems, as in Freund's
Mathematical Statistics, where should one turn to learn what tests to
use in various situations and how to design studies? Can anyone suggest
some good texts or other resources?
===
dennis roberts wrote:
william trochim's research methods knowledge base is a good place to start
... to get ideas
http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/kb/
On 29 Feb 2000 17:48:07 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Paul Gardner) wrote:
George. M. Diekhoff, Basic Statistics for the Social and Behavioral
Sciences, Prentice Hall, 1996, has an excellent chapter at the end which
presents a decision tree. This summarises the various statistical
procedures in the text and helps learners to determine which statistics
are appropriate under various conditions.
=
- Pardon; I haven't seen Diekoff, but 'decision tree' sounds too
cheap. There is certainly a place for a mechanical framework of tests
and procedures; but I read the original question as less particular
than that, and more general ("how to design studies"); and the first
answer, that way, too.
An enormous decision tree may give the right technical answer to 100%
of the narrow questions, but -- since it takes knowledge to frame the
right question -- that will be a misleading answer, I would guess, for
1/3 of the naive questioners, at least. People just can't tell you
what they never thought to ask, concerning
'reliability' (of various kinds);
'dependence' (ditto);
'shape of the distribution';
'outliers'; and
'What numbers are meaningful when we use this measurement?' or,
'What transformations might be useful?'
(I am still answeriing the big question, Why can't a computer give us
all the stats advice that we need? So far, no one has programmed a
computer with 10,000 well-classified examples)
If they have not learned the whole statistical vocabulary, they won't
be able to argue persuasively that their own answers are correct. And
you can't thoroughly learn the vocabulary until you are expert enough
to know something about all the available techniques.
In addition to the statistics, there are particular problems in each
area about their own sorts of statistical designs. To learn what to
do in various situations, I think you have to *read*, you have to be
exposed to a large number of various situations. You have to read
some good examples, and you have to read criticisms which include
examples that were not-so-good.
--
Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html
===
This list is open to everyone. Occasionally, less thoughtful
people send inappropriate messages. Please DO NOT COMPLAIN TO
THE POSTMASTER about these messages because the postmaster has no
way of controlling them, and excessive complaints will result in
termination of the list.
For information about this list, including information about the
What to study next
After one learns to do the textbook problems, as in Freund's Mathematical Statistics, where should one turn to learn what tests to use in various situations and how to design studies? Can anyone suggest some good texts or other resources? Ward Soper -- === This list is open to everyone. Occasionally, less thoughtful people send inappropriate messages. Please DO NOT COMPLAIN TO THE POSTMASTER about these messages because the postmaster has no way of controlling them, and excessive complaints will result in termination of the list. For information about this list, including information about the problem of inappropriate messages and information about how to unsubscribe, please see the web page at http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ ===
