Okay, we’ve got a research question and some data! Now what? In this episode, we talk about common analytical techniques used in the social sciences (particularly industrial and organizational psychology) and what questions they can help answer. We also talk about the only “true” way to demonstrate that X causes Y and cover some common things to watch out for when conducting analysis.

Timestamps:

1:00 : Statistics and how we’re teaching them the wrong way

6:10 : Describing data vs making inferences with data

9:40 : Describing survey data with “percent favorability”

13:55 : Why Jose thinks (knows) descriptive stats are great

17:08 : Let’s talk about correlations and shark attacks

23:05 : T-tests

32:23 : Experimental design 101

36:13 : Statistical pitfalls

40:48 : Wrap-up

Mentioned This Episode:

Tyler Vigen – Spurious Correlations

Science Forum – Ten common statistical mistakes to watch out for

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Credits:

Our intro and outro music is “Ingenuity” by Lee Rosevere, licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC 3.0). You can find more of Lee’s music at https://leerosevere.bandcamp.com/. https://leerosevere.bandcamp.com/. Our transition music for this episode is “Tech Toys” also by Lee; licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC 3.0).

Logo Artwork by Antonella Espinoza. Find her at @ellaspin on Twitter!