Lessons from a Journey into Quantitative Data Analysis: Understanding Research by Doing It

The theme of this Think Tank has been to discuss why we believe it is important to be aware of various issues with psychology and applied linguistics research methods and analyses. I decided to write my story about how I became aware of these issues and what I understand about them. In focusing on how I learned about conducting quantitative research and interpreting the results of published studies, my aim is to give an example of how a deeper understanding of other people’s research begins with doing your own. My journey is just beginning and is one I have undertaken with the help of textbooks, articles, and online resources, but few taught classes or discussions. I do not pretend to be an expert, but I will share some of the important lessons I’ve learned over the last five years as I continue to work on getting a PhD.

Be(a)ware of What You See in an fMRI Image

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) generated great excitement when it was introduced in the 1990s, because it allowed brain researchers to see what was happening, and where, inside a living person’s head. Before the twentieth century, researchers could only deduce the functions of brain regions after they had been damaged, and could only look directly at the brains of people who had died. However, fMRI images have also been labelled as “brain porn” (Helding, 2020, p. 48) when they are overused to add credibility to what writers and public speakers wish to say. I count myself among the gullible guilty who have scoured the internet for an image that will illustrate my point, with too little investigation into the original source. Let me share what I now know better!

The Replication Crisis: Research Fraud? Or Something Worse?

Brian Nosek’s Reproducibility Project touched on a major problem in research: the publish or perish dilemma. To get hired by a university, to get tenure, and to get research grants—all the gateways associated with a successful university career—you have to publish in good journals and publish a lot. “Publish or perish” they say, and that incentivizes researchers to get published no matter what.

These Two Resources Teach You How to Spot Misinformation

It was early in 2007 when I first heard about a 1954 book called How to Lie with Statistics, by Darrell Huff. Though I knew next to nothing about it aside from its title, that alone made me want to read it, since it seemed like it promised to be an entertaining work that I’d learn something from. While I was unable to get a copy of it then, I vowed that I would find and read it someday.

My Social Science Crises

“Following the science,” has become the politician’s mantra of choice in these virus-ridden times. I am not a scientist, but, as a teacher, I have long been a consumer of social science. Following the science usually seems like a good idea at the time, but following it blindly is a terrible idea that has led me fairly regularly to false turns and pratfalls. I offer my cautionary autobiographical sketch to encourage others to handle science with care.