Looking to freshen up your readings for Research Methods? Or for a good, brief RM primer for a stats or psych class? Check out Our World in Data's "Why randomized control trials matter and the procedures that strengthen them" . Added bonus: Our World in Data dived into their data archives to illustrate each piece with their own research. I don't know about you, but my brain far prefers abstract concepts paired with concrete examples.  Some of the classic include: -Why we need RCT. https://ourworldindata.org/randomized-controlled-trials#what-are-randomized-controlled-trials -Why causal inference is hard. https://ourworldindata.org/randomized-controlled-trials#the-fundamental-problem-of-causal-inference -Why we need control groups. https://ourworldindata.org/randomized-controlled-trials#the-control-group-gives-us-a-comparison-to-see-what-would-have-happened-otherwise

 https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/05/10/1175303067/a-plastic-sheet-with-a-pouch-could-be-a-game-changer-for-maternal-mortality https://www.bmj.com/content/381/bmj.p1055 I love this study, in and of itself, because it is based on research that will save women's lives without spending a lot of money. I love it.  Here is a link to the original study . I learned about it from an NPR story about the research by Rhitu Chaterjee . I also love it because it is an accessible example of a bunch of statistics things: Dependent variables...operationalizing variables...why cross-cultural research and solutions aren't just lip service to diversity...how control groups in medical research are very different than control groups in psychology research...absolute vs. relative risk. -Dependent variables/operationalized variables: This study clearly illustrates the power of measurement and operationalization. The researchers wanted to create a way to better assess post-childbirth h...

It shouldn't come as a shock that the CDC shares data on rates of public health issues in the US.  However, you may be unaware of the available data and interactive visualizations provided by the CDC and the different ways you can use them in class . 1. Teach your students a lesson about good sources for mental health data. 2. Show your students how data visualizations can help present and simplify complex data. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/pulse/mental-health.htm 3. Get into the research methods. Everyone has heard of the census, but fewer have heard of the Household Pulse Survey (https://www.census.gov/data/experimental-data-products/household-pulse-survey.html). The US Census collects much information between the 10-year census, including mental health data. https://www.census.gov/data/experimental-data-products/household-pulse-survey.html 4. Talk about how the government assesses depression and anxiety. For example, you can show how the basic methodology uses a valid, relia...

I think it is important to emphasize how regression can be used to make future predictions using trends in existing data. Most psychology books use psychology examples to illustrate this, which makes sense. Still, I think explaining how regression is widely used in business to make financial decisions, and predictions is important. But that can be boring. But I found one example that uses the Marvel Comic Universe to do this. I already blogged about this , but I'm sharing exactly how I used this in class presently. ASIDE: This data is being regularly updated! Here is a Google Drive folder with 1) my version of the data (CSV and I turned all the percentages to decimal points for JASP) and 2) my PPT . Which includes photos of the scientists of the MCU. ALSO: While your students are doing their exercise, totes play the soundtrack from Guardians of the Galaxy. Do it. 

File under: End of the semester stress blogging about a person who brings me joy. Taylor Swift (see: sampling error with Taylor ). Here is a new, VERY accessible example of ordinal data . Rob Sheffield, writing for Rolling Stone, rank-ordered ALL of Dr. Swift's songs.  https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/taylor-swift-songs-ranked-rob-sheffield-201800/bad-blood-2014-196114/ Also, introduce your students to Methods Section 😁. This rank order is based on the variable "Taylor genius". You could even use this as an example of anti-interrater reliability. This ranking comes from exactly one person. AND YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN KID DESERVED BETTER. Each ranking includes the best lyric from the song as well as a brief description of the Taylor Genius on display. Is this also an example of qualitative data? https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/taylor-swift-songs-ranked-rob-sheffield-201800/the-great-war-2022-1234617639/

It is April 18 in Erie, PA. It sleeted yesterday at my kid's soccer game. However, I know in my heart that Spring is coming. Every year, I get excited about the first crocuses and daffodils here in NW PA. Due to these hard winters followed by beautiful (if snowy) springs, I feel a certain kinship for the Japanese spring lovers who have been tracking the date of the cherry blossom blooms in Kyoto, Japan, for the last 1,200 years. Well, it hasn't always been tracked by humans; sometimes, modern humans have extrapolated this data. I'll get to that in a second. I learned about this data from Twitter user Robin Rohwer . She created this visualization for the data: https://twitter.com/RobinRohwer/status/1639097356657512449 She also shared where she found this data via NOAA , via  Yasuyuki Aono's website: http://atmenv.envi.osakafu-u.ac.jp/aono/kyophenotemp4/ . Go to the NOAA website and poke around. You can see notations referring to how the data was extrapolated over time an...

TL;DR: One way to avoid government regulation is by simply refusing to share data that may lead to government regulation (and safer trains). I'm looking at you, railroads. _____________________________________________________________________________ Not every example I post syncs directly to the typical Psychological Statistics curriculum. I also post about statistical literacy. Like why data matters and counts. And how very, very simple data could help illuminate and solve real-world problems, but only if we can access that data. I get good and mad at organizations that avoid responsibility by manipulating and/or withholding data.  See: Organizations that  share data but in a functionally inaccessible way. Also, I created a spreadsheet (of course I did) containing several examples of times when large organizations goofed around with data so they wouldn't get sued. It looks like I should add rail roads to this list. Aside: I grew up not 10 miles from the world-famous Horsesho...

Friends. You don't know what finding fun stats blog content has been like over the last few years. All of the data writers/websites I followed were always writing about, explaining, and visualizing COVID or political data (rightfully so). I prefer examples about puppies , lists of songs banned from wedding reception s, and ghosts . Memorable examples stick in my students' heads and don't presuppose any knowledge about psychological theory.  Due to the lack of silly data and my own life as a professor, mom of two, wife, and friend, my number of posts during The Rona definitely dipped.  But now, as the crocuses bloom in Erie, PA, the earth, and I, are finding new life and new examples. Nathaniel Rakich, writing for FiveThirtyEight, wrote a whole piece  USING TAYLOR SWIFT TO EXPLAIN POLLING/SAMPLING ERROR S. Specifically, this article tackles three different polling firms and how they went about asking Americans which Taylor Swift album is their favorite Taylor Swift album....

OK. Lotte van Rijswijk, writing for Resume.io,  used Instagram photos to determine the happiest college in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia . Here is the Top 20 list for the US. If you visit the website, you can view similar summaries for the UK and Australian data, as well as an interactive table containing all the data. Here are some ideas for using it in class: 1. This methodology is pretty interesting. She used smiling recognition software and pictures from Instagram to measure happiness. I think this study would pair well with this study about using software to evaluate smiles: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797617734315 https://resume.io/blog/the-happiest-schools-in-the-us-uk-and-australia 2. Ask your student to consider the sampling error that may result from using Instagram data for any research. For example, are photos on Insta representative of human experiences? Is it reasonable to gather a sample of college-aged students using Insta? 3...

Conflict of interest statement: I am slightly shorter than the average American woman. But I'm adorable, so I score low on the Dark Triad?? This blog post started with me giggling at click-bait headlines, but THEN I realized this is one of those rare articles that use data analyses that we teach in Psych Stats. The journey began when I saw this on Twitter: Hilarious, right? Not to be outdone, the NY Post ALSO needed to cover this study:   https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2023/02/27/short-people-more-likely-to-be-psychopaths-study/amp/ I'm wheezing. Immediately, this was a great example of clickbait reporting. The research used The Dark Triad as the theoretical underpinning, and The Dark Triad is like what Mindfulness was 10 years ago in psych research. It is just everywhere. BUT...then I realized this is a very easy-to-read study that you could share with advanced UGs, no problem. What does the original research state? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S...

 Alright. Stick with me. I had this idea when I was scrunching my hair this morning in a hotel in Long Island while on Spring Break. I'm sure this is also the situation that inspired Salk to create the polio vaccine.  So, stats tables. These are tricky to teach because we don't use them, right? Not as mid-level statisticians. The software computes a test statistic, looks up that statistic on the appropriate table, and then reports a p -value. But, simultaneously, the students need to understand what is going on "under the hood."  This is a thing that always catches me up in class. Given how we do statistics nowadays, I spend all this freaking time explaining something of very little real-world value. Sorry, Fisher! Sometimes it feels like I'm trying to teach them how to decode something. But I may have thought of an easier way to explain it. While scrunching. ANYWAY. I was scrunching my hair, and I thought, "Oh, test statistics tables ( F , t , X2) are like...

I love InformationIsBeautiful . They created my favorite data visualization of all tim e.  They also created an interactive scatterplot with all sorts of information about Marvel Comic Universe  films. How to use in class: 1. Experiment with the outcome variables you can add to the X and Y axes: Critical response, budget, box office receipts, year of release, etc. There are more than that; you can add them to either the X or Y axes. So, it is one website, but there are many ways to assess the various films. 2. Because of interactive axes, there are various correlation and regression examples. And these visualizations aren't just available as a quick visual example of linear relationships...see item 3... 3. You can ask your students to conduct the actual data analyses you can visualize because  the hecking data is available . 4. The website offers exciting analyses, encouraging your students to think critically about what the data tells them. 5. You could also squeeze Simp...

This example is from The Economist and behind a paywall. However, it is worth using one of your free monthly views to see these visualizations of how much improvement Ps experience. That said, whenever I talk about antidepressants in class, I remind my students MANY TIMES that I'm not that kind of psychologist, and even if I was, I'm not their psychologist. Instead, they should direct any and all medication questions to their own psychologist. This blog post was inspired by " Antidepressants are over-prescribed, but genuinely help some patients " from The Economist, which was in turn inspired by  " Response to acute monotherapy for major depressive disorder in randomized, placebo-controlled trials submitted to the US FDA: individual participant data analysis", by M.B. Stone et al., BMJ, 2022; "Selective publication of antidepressant trials and its influence on apparent efficacy: updated comparisons and meta-analyses of newer versus older trial s", ...