Newsgroups: bit.listserv.psycgrad
Date:         Fri, 11 Dec 1992 15:27:47 -0800
              <PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
From:         Tor Neilands <tbn@UTXVM.CC.UTEXAS.EDU>
Subject: Re: let's hear some opinions

Monika writes:

>Tor,
>I might be wrong, but if you hired an "x" number of undergraduates to run
>your experiments and maybe an "x" number of others to do the stats, shouldnyt
>they be present with you at the defence?  (No harm intended!)

Actually, these folks aren't hired. They take a course called "Psychology
357: Research in Psychology" and receive a grade and 3 units for their work
(most courses here are 3 units of credit).

I agree with you: They should be able to be present at the defense, but I
don't think my faculty would be too keen on that idea.

>After all, these people did the hard core tedious work, and you provided the
>intellectual interpretations...

Actually, we all did hardcore tedious work. I spent over a year writing my
proposal. I spent a few weeks writing up a script for the actual
experiments to be run. We all met weekly to discuss what was going on in
the experimental sessions, and to discuss pilot data. I spent each and
every minute of data entry with them, in large part doing team data entry
(one person reading while the other person types) with them--and showing
them how to use PROC COMPARE in SAS to compare data sets to catch data
entry errrors, too--this teamwork was educational for all of us.

>In my field you do it all by yourself, or you shouldn`t call yourself a
>researcher, but then again I never had to run 1000 subjects.  How many subjects
>were you required to run in order to get the "statistically meaningful"
>results?

We ran about about 185 participants for two studies; each session took
about an hour to run, individually. I haven't obtained "statistically
significant" results which are perfectly in line with my hypotheses, but I
did not "check the data" before running the analyses, nor will I run more
subjects now that I've done the analyses. In an strictly hypothesis testing
framework, that would promote capitalizing on chance (if one makes a
decision on whether to cease running subjects or to continue running s's
based on the "significance" level of a hyp. test with a current sample).

>  Maybe we often throw the baby with the bath watter by adhering to
>number (the greater N the better) instead of looking at the data the way it
>is.

What does it mean to say "looking at the data the way it is". My
understanding of the hypothesis testing framework is that as sample size
increases, so does the statistical power to reject the null hypothesis.
Thus, as your N increases, you actually will obtain better parameter
estimates of population parameters. In this sense, then, if you are
interested in estimating the "true" population values of parameters, you
wish to have as large a sample as possible--the larger the sample, the more
accurate your parameter estimates should be.

Practical significance and statistical significance are not the same concepts.

> Sorry for this babling, but I just came back from a collegues defence,
>which was fabulous, and she can say in all honesty that it is her thesis and
>hers only!  She is a Dr. now!

That's great. I'm very happy for her. Did she have an advisor? Did she have
a dissertation committee who provided suggestions to her about what she
should do during her preliminary orals? Did she talk to friends and/or
colleagues about her research designs? Did she include an introduction in
her dissertation write-up? Did that introduction cite previous literature
on which her own work is in part based? Did her advisor guide her or work
with her in any way?

I hope to receive my doctorate in may. When I receive it, I'll be happy and
proud that while I did a lot of work on this project and put a tremendous
amount of effort into it for the past three years, I haven't gone at it
alone--I've learned the value of teamwork and give and take with my advisor
and my committee members; through gleaning suggestions from them my
proposal became *much* stronger as a result of their input and criticism. I
also learned the value of educating and working with enthusiastic,
motivated undergraduates who very much wanted to take advantage of the
opportunity to do research with me and my advisor. In fact, I had so many
applicants for the position that I had to turn away more applicants than I
could accept. And, on a purely pragmatic level, many grad schools require
that their undergrad applicants have some type of research experience under
their belts. By providing the undergrads with an opportunity to work with
us, they not only get that necessary pragmatic credential, they also get to
"try out" psychological research and see if they like it--and that's an
important service we can provide to the undergraduate population of
psychology majors.
>
>
>                                 _
>    ) (    Monika Trzcinska    _- o   ) (   054470@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA
>   )   (----------------------- o o  )   (----------------------------
>    ) (                        -_ o   ) (
>                                 -
>   "The most important attitude that can be formed is that of a desire
>    to go on learning".
>                                                  Dewey (1938)

cheers,

Tor


Tor Neilands
Systems Analyst
Statistical Services Group
Computation Center
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX  78712

Phone: (512)-471-3241, Ext. 263

Internet:  TBN@Utxvm.cc.utexas.edu
___________________________________________________

"To thy own self be true".             --- Walt Whitman

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and I, I took
 the road less traveled by, and that has made all the
 difference".                                 --- Robert Frost
___________________________________________________

Disclaimer:  All of the views expressed above are solely
those of the author. Any relationship between my own
views and those of the University of Texas and/or The
Computation Center at the University of Texas are
due merely to regression to the mean.
____________________________________________________
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