I had my first exam in adv stats this week. It was basic stats, methods I had as an undergraduate at ISU. I had to take two statistics classes as a psych undergrad, while also producing and working on several research projects that involved using SPSS (1999 version) and computing results. I thought it would be easy, like riding a bike. Boy was I wrong!
I don’t remember much of anything from my previous statistics classes besides the very basics; the information that everyone knows such as mean, median and mode, or p values and t-tests. Our professor is quite fun and engaging, but I’m just not picking it up as quickly as I feel I should be. I feel I scored at least a high B on the test, but I’m not satisfied that I understand the underpinnings of statistical methods and why we use the tests we use during research. That is my overall goal. Anyone can memorize formulas and use a program on the computer, but not just anyone can tell you why they perfomed a one-way ANOVA in a research paper.
Dr. Timothy D. Bowman, Associate Professor, Dominican University