A recent research article that ACTUALLY USES ANALYSES WE TEACH IN INTRO STATS

You have to walk before you can run, right? The basics we teach in Psych Stats help our students walk, but they are not typical of published psychology research. It is difficult for Psych Stat instructors to find good examples of our analyses in recently published research (for an exception, check out Open Stats Lab).

A recent publication caught my eye because I love sending people mail (scroll down to find my list of recommended, envelope-friendly surprises).

Liu, P. J., Rim, S., Min, L., & Min, K. E. (2022). The surprise of reaching out: Appreciated more than we think. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, No Pagination Specified-No Pagination Specified. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000402

Spoiler alert: People love being surprised by mail. Like, more than the sender thinks the receiver will be surprised.

I was delighted to discover that this interesting paper consists of multiple studies that use what we teach in Psych Stats. Check out this article summary to gain a sense of just how many good Psych Stats examples are contained within. T-tests, factorial ANOVA, correlation...so much good stuff. AND it is an excellent example of the multiple-study papers typical of the field. AND the article discusses power and effect sizes. AND maybe it will get someone to send a card to someone else?

NOTE: I do not have the data from the article, but I liked to use Andy Luttrell's website to generate data to my specification (M, SD), which includes creating data sets that mimick published findings. I will update this blog post as I make my own data sets that correspond with the results.

WAIT! Andy Luttrell found the data! Thanks, Andy!

Ways to use funny meme scales in your stats classes

Have you ever heard of the theory that there are multiple people worldwide thinking about the same novel thing at the same time? It is the multiple discovery hypothesis of invention . Like, multiple great minds around the world were working on calculus at the same time. Well, I think a bunch of super-duper psychology professors were all thinking about scale memes and pedagogy at the same time. Clearly, this is just as impressive as calculus. Who were some of these great minds? 1) Dr. Molly Metz maintains a curated list of hilarious "How you doing?" scales. 2) Dr. Esther Lindenström posted about using these scales as student check-ins. 3) I was working on a blog post about using such scales to teach the basics of variables. So, I decided to create a post about three ways to use these scales in your stats classes: 1) Teaching the basics of variables. 2) Nominal vs. ordinal scales. 3) Daily check-in with your students. 1. Teach your students the basics...

Leo DiCaprio Romantic Age Gap Data: UPDATE

Does anyone else teach correlation and regression together at the end of the semester? Here is a treat for you: Updated data on Leonardo DiCaprio, his age, and his romantic partner's age when they started dating. A few years ago, there was a dust-up when a clever Redditor r/TrustLittleBrother realized that DiCaprio had never dated anyone over 25. I blogged about this when it happened. But the old data was from 2022. Inspired by this sleuthing, I created a wee data set, including up-to-date information on his current relationship with Vittoria Ceretti, so your students can suss out the patterns that exist in this data.

Logical Fallacy Ref Meme

So, I love me some good statsy memes. They make a brief, important point that sticks in the heads of students. I've recently learned of the Logical Fallacy Ref meme. Here are a couple that apply to stats class:

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