Research Consumers

While your application and evaluation of research design and statistics in this course has been in the context of peer-reviewed journal articles and research, most of the research you will encounter outside of your formal studies will be in the context of lay sources – newspapers, popular press, Facebook threads/posts, cable news shows and so on. What are the differences between peer-reviewed, academic research, and research reported in the popular press? How do you go about being an intelligent consumer of research in the popular press? If you were to advise friends and family about how to interpret research claims they encounter in their daily lives, what advice would you share and why?

Be sure to put information in your own words and cite accordingly. Respond substantively to at least two of your classmates’ postings.

Point Value: 3 Points————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Resources

Required Text

Sukal, M. (2013). Research methods: Applying statistics in research. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

Chapter 12: Choosing an Appropriate Statistical Test

Recommended References

American Psychological Association (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, D.C.: Author.

Cengage Learning (2005). Statistics Workshops. Available from: http://www.wadsworth.com/psychology_d/templates/student_resources/workshops/stats_wrk.html (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Choosing the Correct Statistical Test

MicrOsiris. (n.d.).The decision tree for statistics. Adapted from Andrews, Klem, Davidson, O’Malley, and Rodgers, A guide for selecting statistical techniques for analyzing social science data (2nd ed.).Retrieved fromhttps://www.microsiris.com/Statistical%20Decision%20Tree// (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

Trochim, W. M. K. (2006). Selecting statistics. In Research methods knowledge base (2nd ed.).Retrieved from Web Center for Social Research Methods Web Workshops-