JAMA visual abstracts: A great way to illustrate basic inferential tests

So, the Journal of the American Medical Academy publishes visual abstracts for some of its research articles. I've written about them before (in particular, this example that illustrates an ANOVA). These abstracts succinctly summarize the research. They feel like an infographic but contain all of the main sections of a research paper. They are great. They quickly relate the most essential parts of a research study and have a home in Intro Stats.

I love them in Psych Stats and use them for several reasons.

1. Using medical examples reminds Psych Stats students that Psych Stats is really Stats Stats, and stats are used everywhere.

2. These are simplified real-world examples. JAMA creates these to help highlight essential facts for journalists and the public, so Intro Stats students are more than ready to take these on.

3. I like to use these as a quick review of some of the inferential tests we teach in stats. This is no guarantee that basic stats were used in the project, but most posters report effect sizes, CIs, etc.

Here are a few examples from psychology-adjacent research:

T-test thinking

https://media.jamanetwork.com/news-item/visual-abstract-effect-of-values-affirmation-on-reducing-racial-differences-in-adherence-to-high-blood-pressure-medication/

Factorial ANOVA thinking

https://media.jamanetwork.com/news-item/visual-abstract-outcomes-of-delirium-prevention-program-in-older-adults-after-elective-surgery/

More factorial ANOVA thinking

https://media.jamanetwork.com/news-item/visual-abstract-in-school-screening-to-identify-evaluate-reduce-depression-among-adolescents/

Repeated measure design

https://media.jamanetwork.com/news-item/visual-abstract-effect-of-interventions-for-young-people-with-borderline-personality-disorder/

Edited to add (10/10/22):

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2796748?resultClick=1

Comments

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