Marc You might want to assign them Stanovich's (How to think straight about psychology) Chapter 7: But it's not real life: The "artificiality" criticism and psychology. That chapter explain in a clear and straight forward way why psychologists care less about external validity than most lay people believe we should. Marie
**************************************************** Marie Helweg-Larsen, Ph.D. Department Chair and Associate Professor of Psychology Kaufman 168, Dickinson College Carlisle, PA 17013 Office: (717) 245-1562, Fax: (717) 245-1971 http://alpha.dickinson.edu/departments/psych/helwegm **************************************************** -----Original Message----- From: Turner, G. Marc [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, November 02, 2007 4:02 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] Swimming with da dolphins Stephen, Thank you for this very timely reference. For some reason this semester, a large number of students in my methods courses seem to be over emphasizing issues of generalizability and while almost (if not completely) ignoring threats to internal and construct validity. In-class demonstration projects that have always worked well in the past don't seem to be working with the students this semester. (I just finished grading one of these assignments, so this is fresh in my mind right now.) Every semester I do a "study" on ESP with my students that consists of two conditions, with 20 trials in each. It's the standard "think about what the next image will be" then see if they get it correct or not. They score themselves after each trial, with a brief break in between conditions. I pick something different from semester to semester as the "ESP enhancing object" to be used for the 2nd condition, where all of the images are presented in exactly the same order as the first condition. Needless to say, I always get a significant effect with scores in the second condition being higher. In past semesters almost all students pick up on the issue of carry over and sequence effects threatening the validity of the study. This semester the vast majority of students are focusing on the sample (ie students in the class) not being representative of the larger population as the most important threat/limitation, and very few are even mentioning testing as a threat in the design even though in my mind it's staring them in the face. I was beating my head against the wall while grading the papers tonight and realizing I needed to go back over the threats to experimental validity (again) and why threats to internal validity were important. So this article came at just the right time for me to discuss it with them in class tomorrow... well, really not tomorrow since class is in about 8 hours now... - Marc At 12:14 AM 11/2/2007, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >This just out: Swimming with dolphins (aka "Dolphin-assisted >Therapy") does not cure autism, mental retardation, depression, >"infantile neurosis", dermatitis, or bad breath (ok, I made that last >one up). > >Our old friend Scott Lilienfeld, along with Lori Marino, just published >a review saying so (http://tinyurl.com/yvtc2u ). > >No word on the effectiveness of swimming with da fishes. > >Stephen > >Marino, L, & Lilienfeld, S. (2007). Dolphin-assisted therapy: More >flawed data and more flawed conclusions. Anthrozoos, 20, 239-249. > >----------------------------------------------------------------- >Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. >Professor of Psychology, Emeritus >Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >2600 College St. >Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7 >Canada ============================================= G. Marc Turner, PhD, MEd, Network+, MCP Senior Lecturer & Technology Coordinator Department of Psychology Texas State University-San Marcos San Marcos, TX 78666 phone: (512)245-2526 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- ---
