Btw, you are not the only person with this problem. I cannot tell you the number of students who just do not grasp this. What works best for us is to have the students think about it as if it were money. Then they can get the concept of which is greater.
Deb Deborah Briihl Dept of psych and counseling Valdosta state university [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> ,Sent from my iPad On Sep 28, 2012, at 7:16 PM, "Wuensch, Karl L" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Nope -- my TA would put two numbers up on the board, like .05 and .032, and ask them, in words, which is lower – or he would put one number up, like .046, and ask whether it was less than or more than .05. Cheers, <image001.jpg><http://core.ecu.edu/psyc/wuenschk/klw.htm> From: Beth Benoit [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, September 28, 2012 6:11 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] Is p < .05 ? Karl, Is it possible they're having trouble with the < vs. the >? I'd be willing to bet that most Americans - no, slash that - most people struggle with what those two signs represent. I know, it "ain't rocket science," but I suspect a lot of people never had that explained to them. Please say that's what it really is. ;-) Beth Benoit Granite State College Plymouth State University New Hampshire On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 5:43 PM, Wuensch, Karl L <<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: I am not the greatest fan of NHST, but do my duty to teach it. For a good while now I have been disturbed that a substantial proportion of my undergraduate students never figure out how to decide whether or not a test is significant. I tried stressing that p is a measure of the goodness of fit between the data and the null, that p is like the strength of evidence in support of the accused null defendant in statistical court, and so on. Nothing seemed to help much. Now one of my teaching assistants has discovered why. Given two numbers, these students are unable to identify which is smaller. No, I am not kidding. Yes, this involves numbers between 0 and 1. My TA spend half an hour trying to teach them how to tell which is the smaller of two numbers, without great success. Karl W. --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. To unsubscribe click here: <http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13105.b9b37cdd198e940b73969ea6ba7aaf72&n=T&l=tips&o=20768> http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13105.b9b37cdd198e940b73969ea6ba7aaf72&n=T&l=tips&o=20768 or send a blank email to <mailto:leave-20768-13105.b9b37cdd198e940b73969ea6ba7aa...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> leave-20768-13105.b9b37cdd198e940b73969ea6ba7aa...@fsulist.frostburg.edu<mailto:leave-20768-13105.b9b37cdd198e940b73969ea6ba7aa...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. To unsubscribe click here: <http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13060.c78b93d4d09ef6235e9d494b3534420e&n=T&l=tips&o=20770> http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13060.c78b93d4d09ef6235e9d494b3534420e&n=T&l=tips&o=20770 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to <mailto:leave-20770-13060.c78b93d4d09ef6235e9d494b35344...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> leave-20770-13060.c78b93d4d09ef6235e9d494b35344...@fsulist.frostburg.edu<mailto:leave-20770-13060.c78b93d4d09ef6235e9d494b35344...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. To unsubscribe click here: <http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13162.50de294b9d4987a3c89b4a5cc4bdea62&n=T&l=tips&o=20771> http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13162.50de294b9d4987a3c89b4a5cc4bdea62&n=T&l=tips&o=20771 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to <mailto:leave-20771-13162.50de294b9d4987a3c89b4a5cc4bde...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> leave-20771-13162.50de294b9d4987a3c89b4a5cc4bde...@fsulist.frostburg.edu<mailto:leave-20771-13162.50de294b9d4987a3c89b4a5cc4bde...@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=20788 or send a blank email to leave-20788-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
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