Several comments, because I'm very interested in this subject and know it will be easy to burn my 3 posts today.
Our department has recently ended its longstanding two-semester Research Methods (integrated stats) I and II sequence which followed the student taking a Math Stats course. We are going forward with a 200 level research methods course followed by a 300 level statistics course. We will encourage, but not require the Math stats course. The reason was practical, students were getting held up by the sequence prolonging time to graduation and the increasing number of transfer students were particularly put to test by the sequence. I don't know what I want my ideal world to be for this. When I came here I was very enamored with the idea of the 2 course integrated sequence. But, then I taught it and found that the books available to teach that way were not terribly good (The Heiman text being the best organized for this purpose and it has problems) and students found the courses overwhelming because of the several different things that were being juggled simultaneously. There are good arguments for virtually any way you want to arrange the courses. I know that with the current approach we are implementing (Basic methods followed by statistical techniques), I would love there to be an advanced research course required that was focused in particular areas (Social, Developmental, Cognitive, Physiological, Clinical), but staffing is a significant issue for instituting such an approach and returns the students to a 1.5 semester long sequence that must be scheduled and accomplished. Co-requisiting the methods and stats courses such that a student must take both courses simultaneously with a high degree of coordination between the two classes. The issue there is that there will inevitably be students who withdraw or fail one of the two courses needing to repeat only one. That means the desired dialog between the courses is lost for those students. **** Excel, SPSS, Minitab... R? In our new course, we intend to introduce students to using SPSS for statistics. I've always had students do at least some of their work in SPSS, just so they are acquainted with the environment and how to work with the program. The past two semesters I've had them work with Excel initially, then gone to SPSS for the last few weeks. I think that Excel exposure is very useful and important because it is a tool they are likely to be expected to have familiarity with, or at least will give them a leg-up interviewing for many jobs. SPSS, however, is used more and more in commercial settings and having some history with it can be helpful for many students. I've never used Minitab, but since it is not often used outside of teaching (from what I can tell), that means teaching a tool that students will rarely encounter again. When I hear R proposed for undergraduates I have to snicker. There are a lot of R true believers out there. IMO, they are like Unix true believers and so forth. They seem to believe that the essential great thing for R is that it is free (you'll note you rarely hear them suggest that you should teach S to students, even though R is essentially a back-engineered version of S with the same commands and analysis methods, output, input methods, etc.). It is a programming language the way SPSS was before they developed a dialog-box based interface for it in Windows, but more difficult than SPSS was. If I were teaching statistics to engineering students, I would teach using R. Engineering students are expected to know how to program a computer. Psychology students are not expected to know how to program a computer. Psychology students will not gain skills that they have much likelihood of needing in any of their most likely jobs. Don't get me wrong, I like R and have been learning it over the past couple of years, but I would never teach undergraduate psychology students with that program. Paul Bernhardt Dept of Psychology Frostburg State University pcbernhardt _at_ frostburg _dot_ edu On Apr 15, 2010, at 9:08 AM, John Kulig wrote: > > Marie et al > > Not that I want to pitch MINITAB commercially, but I am always amazed at > preconceptions. MINITAB has cronbach's alpha & factor analysis under > Multivariate stats, multiple R, binary ordinal & logistic regressions under > Regression, all anova options, etc. I would find it amazing if the go-to stat > package for statisticians would not have these common procedures. But I > understand that the majority of psychologists choose SPSS first. A few years > back our IT people pushed for more MINITAB and the psych depart and a few > others fought to keep SPSS on the network, though the arguments did not > revolve around specific procedures that were used, just personal preference. > I always joked that MINITAB's only fault was the name. It might be better > called MAXITAB or POWERTAB or something like that. > > ========================== > John W. Kulig > Professor of Psychology > Plymouth State University > Plymouth NH 03264 > ==================================================================== > GALILEO GALILEI: > I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with > sense, reasons, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. > ==================================================================== > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Marie Helweg-Larsen" <[email protected]> > To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" > <[email protected]> > Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2010 8:50:42 AM > Subject: RE: [tips] Best Methods, Stats, and Stats Lab Instructive Material > > We require SPSS to be taught in our psychology stats course for several > reasons (in no particular order): > -the basic stats class is a prerequisite for the 2 required advanced research > methods courses in which they will use SPSS > -it is the program that faculty use in their own research and students who > work in faculty labs will use SPSS > -some other programs (excel, mini tab, etc) do not calculate all needed stats > such as Cronbach's alpha, multiple regression, factor analysis, mixed > designs, etc. It is best (in our view) to teach one package that will meet > all stats needs. > -half of our majors go to graduate school where they will most likely need > SPSS. Even if fewer of our majors went to graduate school we still need to > teach them SPSS. It makes sense to teach them in our courses. > -many of the students who do not go on to graduate school work in a variety > of settings in which they need to use SPSS (consultants, research assistants, > lab managers, science assistants, etc.). > > 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 > Office hours: Mon & Wed 2-3:30 > http://users.dickinson.edu/~helwegm/index.html > **************************************************** > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Dr. Bob Wildblood [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 9:38 PM > To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) > Subject: Re: [tips] Best Methods, Stats, and Stats Lab Instructive Material > > A couple of folks have commented on using SPSS in their statistics courses, > and that causes me to ask "what is the rationale for using SPSS in > undergraduate statistics when the vast majority of our students will never > again use SPSS unless they are employed in a research situation at a > university or an agency that does a great deal of number crunching as part of > their research?" > > ---- Original message ---- >> Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2010 18:10:59 +0000 (UTC) >> From: [email protected] >> Subject: Re: [tips] Best Methods, Stats, and Stats Lab Instructive Material >> To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" >> <[email protected]> >> >> >> >> To teach SPSS in Stats lab, I have been using "SPSS >> for Windows Step by Step" and I've been generally >> satisfied with it. However, given all of the >> resources available on the web, I am thinking of not >> using a book for this portion of the course. >> >> >> >> Miguel >> >> --- >> >> You are currently subscribed to tips as: >> [email protected]. >> >> To unsubscribe click here: >> >> http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13185.d5346723901d967ccc167929e2ee94ad&n=T&l=tips&o=1950 >> >> (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL >> if the line is broken) >> >> or send a blank email to >> leave-1950-13185.d5346723901d967ccc167929e2ee9...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > > . > Robert W. Wildblood, PhD > Riverside Counseling Center and > Adjunct Psychology Faculty @ > Germanna Community College > [email protected] > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13234.b0e864a6eccfc779c8119f5a4468797f&n=T&l=tips&o=1972 > or send a blank email to > leave-1972-13234.b0e864a6eccfc779c8119f5a44687...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13338.f659d005276678c0696b7f6beda66454&n=T&l=tips&o=1989 > or send a blank email to > leave-1989-13338.f659d005276678c0696b7f6beda66...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263003&n=T&l=tips&o=1992 > or send a blank email to > leave-1992-13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263...@fsulist.frostburg.edu Paul Bernhardt Dept of Psychology Frostburg State University pcbernhardt _at_ frostburg _dot_ edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=1999 or send a blank email to leave-1999-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
