Provocative question to all psychologists teaching statistics: Shouldn't you just stop & let mathematically trained statisticians take over? Empirical research shows that psych's teaching statistics don't know statistics well enough. So how can still teaching it be justified?
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Replying to @rmwillen
I think I get the point of your question, but I wonder where all these mathematically-trained statisticians are going to come from. Already in the Anglosphere, intro stats is often taught to psych UGs by psych grad students who have an imperfect grasp themselves. /1
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Replying to @sTeamTraen @rmwillen
So you have two problems from day one: (1) finding enough mathematically-trained statisticians, and (2) convincing uni management to pay the cost of their time, which will be >> than the cost of the grad student's time (and "prevent the grad student gaining valuable experience").
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Replying to @sTeamTraen @rmwillen
Also, there is the delicate balance between "teaching stats more rigorously" and "having UGs walk away from the course en masse because they can't hack the calculus". A lot of people in UG psych have frankly poor levels of mathematics. /3
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Replying to @sTeamTraen @rmwillen
Here is the UK universities page discussing typical entry requirements for UG psych. It suggests that it is entirely possible to be admitted having studied essentially no maths since the age of 16. https://www.ucas.com/ucas/subject-guide-list/psychology … /endpic.twitter.com/tRHG5kkZak
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Replying to @sTeamTraen @rmwillen
I always have a culture shock at this stuff because every high schooler in Cyprus does calculus, linear algebra, etc. Yes, if you choose it you do more of it, but if you don't you will do tons starting from middle school (where you don't get choices anyway).
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+1 Greece
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We even do more than A-level Maths... which shocked me at the time since UK uni for undergrad (compsci) required me to take Maths A-level even though they knew I went to the kind of school I did... I guess that's a massive other tangent about how UK treats overseas students.
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In principle the justification of the early specialisation that is implied by doing (typically) just 3 A-levels is that you arrive at uni with a good level of what you need for a related degree. This works if you do maths/phys/chem and read nat sci, but not in many other cases.
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Replying to @sTeamTraen @o_guest and
Scotland and (I think) NI are different, which is why UG science degrees in Scotland are often 4-year and English students with top A-levels are sometimes able to skip year 1 (I was told that was the case in the 1980s, anyway).
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We specialise in Cyprus at the same age.
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