"Hack your way to Scientific Glory"

This interactive website is really slick: it's a demonstration of inferential statisitcs - p values - and how "statistical significance" is influenced by factors like samplke size and number of variables included in the calculation.

"Hack Your Way to Scientific Glory"

Note: the content of the website (political party power and economic indicators) might be distracting to some students in some contexts?

The interactive feature is halfway down the page. The text at the top and bottom of the page is interesting too: a good discussion of how we need to be very critical and careful consumers of statistical findings (since data can be "hacked" to produce significance). (Note: some profanity in the text).



posted by Rob McEntarffer

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The Challenger Explosion, statistics, mistakes, and regrets

A LONG time ago, I wrote an activity called "Using the Challenger Disaster to Help Explain Correlation." I still think it's a good activity - gives students experience with generating/interpreting a scatter plot based on real data - but I've worried that it's "dated." Many/most students in my psychology club haven't heard about the space shuttle Challenger explosion, and those who do remember hearing about it feel like it's ancient history.

But this NPR report/interview made me realize that this is still a very current issue, in some ways, and there are connections to our psychology content that I never realized:

"30 Years After Explosion, Challenger Engineer Still Blames Himself"

One of the engineers (Bob Ebeling) who originally tried to convince NASA to NOT launch the Challenger that day tells his story, and it is heartbreaking. He had all the data, he had the scatterplots, he had the effect sizes/correlation coefficients, and they convinced him that the shuttle would explode. He pleaded with the NASA officials in charge to delay the launch, but they chose not to. And he's been living  with this "failure" ever since. Really, really sad.

Students could do the original activity involving the scatter plots and decision making, and then listen to this engineer's story. Can students think of ways they might have convinced NASA administrators? Concepts that might be involved: groupthink, centeral/peripheral route to persuasion, foot in the door, etc. 

AND students can think about what it might have been like to have these data, to know how important they are, and to not be able to stop a tragedy from happening. Bob Ebeling is convinced he "failed," but I wish he could consider himself (and that the world could consider him) a hero for caring so much about his work and the lives of the astronauts. 


posted by Rob McEntarffer

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Guess the Correlation game

If you think this is a fun game, you just might be a statistics geek :)

Guess the Correlation

Steve Jones reports that he asked the developer (Omar Wagih) to add negative correlations, and heard back that it's in the works. Adding that feature would make this game even more perfect!



posted by Rob McEntarffer

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Correlation, Causation and Some Cautions

I found this great post on Twitter and it's such a simple example for a basic stats point.  Thanks to io9. The article explains the distinction and how our cognitive biases can influence what we take as acceptable data.

The original link to the article can be found here: http://io9.com/on-correlation-causation-and-the-real-cause-of-auti-1494972271?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

or Link
Here is a screenshot of the article and headline:

Note that the author of the graph intended it as satire, not reality.

Posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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Randomness AKA Stochasticity

Radiolab's most recent podcast/radio show has some great ideas for psychology teachers. First, those of us who teach statistics often need something to illustrate randomness. There is a brief interview with a Berkeley stats prof and a demo she uses. There is also an explanation of how the brain/people choose to include or exclude information when telling/sharing stories. The role of personal schemas plays heavily.

When I was driving to the coast today, I listened to the episode and reacted with great emotion--mainly laughing out loud and with visible disbelief at the stories. It was an amazing show and had wonderful stories. Even if you do not listen to the entire hour, do take time to listen to the first 20 minutes. You will not regret it. Laura Buxton didn't.

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The Speed of Information and Our Place in the World

While this does not relate directly to the teaching of psychology, it does relate to our growth as learners and implications on both teaching and learning. It is a video called, "Did You Know?" and it contains a number of statistical facts about technology, the number of people in the world/regions of the world, and global competition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpEnFwiqdx8

The original video on YouTube was described this way: Wonderful, concise video that helps raise awareness of the issues of globalization in our newly connected world first raised in Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat. Karl Fisch remixed content from David Warlick, Thomas Friedman, Ian Jukes, Ray Kurzweil and others, added some music, and came up with the following presentation.

Version 3.0 is described this way: 3.0 for 2008 - Newly Revised Edition Created by Karl Fisch, and modified by Scott McLeod; Globalization & The Information Age. It was even adapted by Sony BMG at an executive meeting they held in Rome this year. Credits are also given to Scott McLeod, Jeff Brenman

Within a psychology class, one could use it as an exercise in critical thinking. What do you think the authors' intentions were with the video? How would the average American view this video--any emotional reactions? If so, why? Were the positive or negative emotions-explain. Are the statistics accurate? If they are, how are they being used in crafting a message about the future of the world and our role as Americans within the world? What messages are being sent? How does the video use images? Does it over or underwhelm? Explain. How is text used to create a message? One could even go into personality theories and how each might react to this (e.g. Adler and inferiority complex, Rogers and unconditional positive regard, etc.)

I leave it to our readers to add their own questions to the comments section.

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Psych in the news

Seriously? There is so much news flying by I'll never catch up. Today's installment is in fast forward with a minimum amount of words, no credits and crammed in every which way.

Calculating very rare events * Do psychologists still use Rorschach tests? * The mental heath of Iraqis after years of war * How ads enhance TV watching * The flexibility of dream interpretation * Does stress cause gray hair? * Older dads linked to lower IQ kids * Single sex classes in public schools * Placebos in teen depression studies * Brain differences between the religious and non-religious (and hear the NPR report) * Psychology and neuroscience on Twitter *

Two longer ones to end on: shark attacks are dropping and the economy's to blame! (Does anyone else use the correlation does not equal causation example of shark attacks and ice cream sales? So now shark attacks and the economy are correlated?)


Finally, a WARNING: this article in the Washington Post magazine on children dying in cars accidentally because they were forgotten by their parents is difficult to read (or at least it was for me -- there are parts I just had to skim through). I add it only because of the questions it raises about memory, inattention, distraction and people being off of their routines which leads to forgetting. There's also a sidebar on ways to prevent these tragedies -- sure, there's some technology, but there are also the simple things like putting something that you need for work (ID badge, briefcase, keys, etc.) in the back with the child. Kids and Cars also has other devices.

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