Re: Question about stats in intro texts

[David Campbell]

In my experience, college freshmen are already familiar with most of descriptive statistics (central tendency, frequency distributions, scatterplots) by the time they reach college, so I only mention these in brief.  I can quickly explain standard deviation as something like an "average" distance from the mean, and the correlation correficient is understandable using corresponding plots.  As for inferential statistics, I think this is too important a topic to completely skip.  The basic idea isn't so tough and I present it in about 5 minutes.  I start with class data on frequency of crying (large male-female difference here).  I describe the two interpretations for our gender difference (male and female college students differ in crying frequency vs. they don't and our class data represent chance sampling error).  Then I point out that we scientists are conservative and unwilling to say our sample data represent a "real" difference unless we can rule out the chance explanation.  I tell them that in intro statistics, they will learn ways to calculate the likelihood that the chance explanation is correct (and if it turns out to be quite unlikely, say <p.05, then we scrap the chance explanation and announce our findings). Five minutes is enough.  They don't need to know about calculations, but a general understanding of the logic in inferential statistics should help them later.  It also coincides nicely with our emphasis on critical thinking in dealing with research findings. --Dave [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Colleagues:   Some introductory psychology textbooks include a pretty detailed explanation of descriptive and inferential statistics in the chapter devoted to research methods (others may include it but place it in the appendix). I never teach this material, as I am of the opinion that usually there is too much information, we are about to start learning about biopsych (so I am concerned about overwhelming them and it's a matter of priority) and frankly I am not sure that teaching mean, median and mode to students is really necessary for their appreciation of the research studies covered in the course. --  ___________________________________________________________________ David E. Campbell, Ph.D.        [EMAIL PROTECTED] Department of Psychology        Phone: 707-826-3721 Humboldt State University       FAX:   707-826-4993 Arcata, CA  95521-8299          www.humboldt.edu/~campbell/psyc.htm --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]