The expression “publish or perish” is the norm within all academic disciplines and researchers will not get tenured if they do not publish academic work (Miller, Taylor & Bedeian, 2011; Simmons, Nelson & Simonsohn, 2012; De Rond & Miller, 2005). The same is true for professors applying for grants or graduate students seeking scholarships, where having more publications will set someone apart from other candidates. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as good researchers are expected to produce good research, however standards for most scholarly journals to publish an academic article mostly rely on significance (Sterling, 2012). Studies not finding significant results do not get published and are often considered failures (Cumming, 2008; …show more content…
The following will discuss the replication crisis from an undergraduate student’s perspective and how it affected my undergraduate journey specifically. Introductory statistics are part of the problem Initial statistical courses are exciting, as students are taught the foundations of conducting research by learning about inferential statistics. However, important topics such as power, confidence intervals and effect sizes are briefly discussed and quickly forgotten due to the large amount of new information taught in those courses. Over time, students simply learn to rely on p-values, where p < .05, the null hypothesis is rejected and p > .05, the null hypothesis is retained. Statistics are overwhelming and a lot of practice and reading are required to fully understand how it really works. I am a fourth year student and consider myself as having a higher than average knowledge of statistics compared to most fellow students in my year, but I have a lot to learn and am aware that I still do not understand most of it. That is one reason why NHST is surviving, as it is convenient and a strong statistical knowledge is not needed to apply it in research. The point is that appropriate ways to interpret statistics and ethical research practices should be taught as early as possible to avoid the use of common unethical research practices. Next, students learn
Statistics provides us with very useful tools and techniques that aide us in dealing with real world scenarios. I have been able to learn several useful concepts by studying statistics that can aide me in making rational and informed decisions that are supported by the analysis results. Statistics as a discipline is the application and development of various processes put in place to gather, interpret, and analyse the information. The quantification of biological, social, and scientific phenomenons, design and analysis of experiments and surveys, and application of
To ensure that a researcher’s enthusiasm for knowledge and understanding doesn’t let them get carried away, clear guidelines for ethical behaviour in research, a Code of Ethics, have been established by governments, institutions and various professional societies such as the American Psychological Association(APA), the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI).
The evidence that supports my research question provides some basis as well as stability for my conclusions. Attempting to engage in active research for the first time, and equipped with a question that has been explored to different degrees by reputable educators, it is easy for one to be daunted by the challenge. Yet one can take heart from the wealth of information available, and be encouraged to engage in
Prior to this course I have used statistics in my professional life. During my previous employment at the University of Tennessee, College of Veterinary Medicine I worked in the student admissions which made my primary job focus the student application process. This process required me to compile statistical information on our applicant pool for faculty and administrative staff to determine who would be accepted. This statistical data included both categorical data, such as current grade level in undergraduate studies, gender, and ethnicity, as well as numerical data such as age, GPAs, average number of courses taken in a semester, credit hours completed, and test scores (Mirabella, 2011). After the admissions process was completed, these different
3. According to the authors, what are the “three simple steps to doing Statistics right?” 4. What
Statistics, facts, data, and comparisons are absorbing and challenging to present in a way that is anything other than, well, boring. For purposes of an informational presentation, the statistics are unavoidable. However, in this
The last few weeks we covered descriptive statistic: the central tendency, variability, correlation and Z-score. Today’s session is a little bit different, we will be talking about statistical significance. Statistical significance is the level of risk one is willing to take to reject or accept a null hypothesis while it is true and it separate random error from systematic error. When doing a study or research, the statistical significance shows that the difference obtained were not caused by chance. Inferential statistics, the T-test, partition noise from bias by studying a random sample than the population in which we are interested and from the results we infer. The advantage of using sample than a population, it is convenient, saves time, energy and money because n is smaller than population and above all it helps to control systematic and random errors. When we are making a conclusion, we should have a certain confidence or probability of being right and that is called the alpha level; which the risk you are willing to
In his 2013 book, Naked Statistics, Charles Wheelan explains a field that is commonly seen, commonly applied, and commonly misinterpreted: statistics. Though statistical data is ubiquitous in daily life, valid statistical conclusions are not. Wheelan reveals that when data analysis is flawed or incomplete, faulty conclusions abound. Wheelan’s work uncovers statistics’ unscrupulous potential, but also makes a key distinction between deliberate misuse and careless misreading. However, his analysis is less successful in distinguishing common sense from poor judgement, a gap that enables the very statistical issues he describes to perpetuate themselves.
This final week of LED 480 class can be described as a goal setting week. This past week’s lessons learned were mostly about preparing to write a quality research paper. Data must be able to be evaluated in order to write a professional research paper. Kumar (2012) suggests that writers must be able to explain data in text, charts, graphs, or by conducting statistical measure, which we did not covered in class. Together, these are “the four methods of communicating and displaying analyzed data.” (Kumar, p. 291). Although we only covered charts and graphs, this lesson improved my ability to understand the reasons for using the two formats. Using charts will allow me to present large amounts of data, if I am not able
There are three basic principles to consider when evaluating the ethics of a study: 1) respect for persons, 2) beneficence, and 3) justice (Houser, J., 2012, pg. 54-56). To apply these
Source: G. C. Britz, D. W. Emerling, L. B. Hare, R. W. Hoerl, & J. E. Shade. "How to Teach Others to Apply Statistical Thinking." Quality Progress (June 1997): 67--80.
Our country was founded on certain moral principles. The moral principles which guide our lives are referred to as ethics. These ethics have an impact on how we interact with the world around us and shape our personalities; this happens even if we do not realize their immediate impact. It is for this very reason that ethics in psychological research became necessary. “One may also define ethics as a method, procedure, or perspective for deciding how to act and for analyzing complex problems and issues” (Resnik, 2011). We are expected to behave or be treated a particular way in society, therefore we should be granted certain ethical treatments in regards to research.
In How to Lie with Statistics (Huff, 1954), Darrel Huff deciphers statistical examples and explains the means of deception that statistics and statisticians sometimes use to relay false information. Huff also conveys an underlying message of don’t believe everything you’re told, something him and my mother have in common. At first glance, a reader might think that this book will teach people how to actually lie using statistics, but that is not the case. It gives the reader a glimpse or a behind the curtain view of how easily it is to be deceived using numbers and how it is slyly achieved. Ironically he calls the book How to Lie with Statistics almost to tease his audience that the content in this book is not as it appears. To my utmost surprise, I actually rather enjoyed this book. It was a fairly simple read that was filled with new information and showed me how to look closer at statistical figures in the future. The humor was spot on so much, so that I even chuckled aloud occasionally. For the icing on the cake, I even expanded my vocabulary to learn fun words such as rotogravure.
So while I never want to take a statistics course, and while statistics scientifically involves so many numbers and mathematical principles, I am now interested in seeing how statistics is different from what everyone has said. It is wonderful to think that everyone can be connected through these
I’ve learned that it’s not necessarily what we find out from research but, where we gathered the information. We should be careful with how we find out information. With all information gathered, we must also gather participants. It is essential that those whom take on the role of scientific researcher of psychology that the guidelines of the American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct be followed (Cozby & Bates, 2015, p. 47). Confidentiality and privacy is very important within research. Confidentiality is an issue when a researcher has assured subjects that the collected data are only accessible to people with permission, generally only the researcher (Cozby & Bates, 2015, p. 50). One major step to ensure proper treatment is to gather informed consents. An informed consent allows all participants to understand all parts of research might influence their active decision of