Although our psych department doesn't have a corresponding grad program (our Grad School has a separate Counseling program), I have to agree with Michael Scoles and extend his statement from undergrads and grad students to fellow faculty. I consult with a number of our faculty on their dissertations (many of our new faculty are ABD) and it always strikes me the extent to which the things they have questions about are the concepts I teach in my undergrad classes in Stats, Research and Psych Testing. The questions aren't about how to get SPSS to do such-and-such (they seem to have a good grasp of that somehow). The questions are always about what the output means. There are some idiosyncrasies with how SPSS presents things that might be useful for them to know (like why is p-value called ".Sig"?) but I prefer students to know the underpinnings of the results and so I am not quick to teach them anything that just becomes a recipe for "enter the data here and watch the pretty numbers come out over there".
Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences John Brown University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 [email protected] ________________________________________ From: Michael Scoles [[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2012 8:13 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] Stats software in grad school.. When I was in graduate school, folks from the clinical wing would suck it up and come visit with us rat runners with the following question (stated in different ways). I've got the printout from BMDP from my dissertation data. Do any of you people down here know what it means. I resist using SPSS to teach statistics until the most advanced graduate courses. If they can perform simple computations on a calculator, and more complex ones with the help of Excel, they might have a chance of understanding what those SPSS outputs mean. Michael T. Scoles, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Psychology & Counseling University of Central Arkansas Conway, AR 72035 501-450-5418>>> Marc Carter <[email protected]> 6/6/2012 12:35 PM >>> Hi, All -- A little unscientific poll for you. We consider our program to be a grad-school-prep program, and have been doing pretty heavy instruction in SPSS, thinking that when the students get to grad school that's the package they're most likely to encounter. That was certainly my experience a few years ago, but I'm wondering if we're thinking right, today. Should we move to a different stats package, or is SPSS still pretty common. Since IBM bought it it's gone through some changes and seemed headed much more toward business applications, but this last year they seemed to realize that schools were a large part of their clientele, and have made pricing a little more reasonable (although still hideously expensive). Here the departments that want that package buy it (IT decided to cut its budget by pushing things off onto departments), and so I want to do right by my students, but have to think "thrifty." So, the poll: for those of you who work in departments that have grad programs, what stats software packages are available to your students? Thanks! m -- Marc Carter, PhD Associate Professor of Psychology Chair, Department of Behavioral and Health Sciences College of Arts & Sciences Baker University -- The information contained in this e-mail and any attachments thereto ("e-mail") is sent by Baker University ("BU") and is intended to be confidential and for the use of only the individual or entity named above. The information may be protected by federal and state privacy and disclosures acts or other legal rules. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are notified that retention, dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error please immediately notify Baker University by email reply and immediately and permanently delete this e-mail message and any attachments thereto. Thank you. --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=357701.a768e95c4963686e69b47febf8aa657a&n=T&l=tips&o=18210 or send a blank email to leave-18210-357701.a768e95c4963686e69b47febf8aa6...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13039.37a56d458b5e856d05bcfb3322db5f8a&n=T&l=tips&o=19583 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-19583-13039.37a56d458b5e856d05bcfb3322db5...@fsulist.frostburg.edu<mailto:leave-19583-13039.37a56d458b5e856d05bcfb3322db5...@fsulist.frostburg.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=19604 or send a blank email to leave-19604-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
