MRES meeting (THURS noon-1pm DK 2064)

Meeting Information.

The following lists the MRES meeting summary and readings. We meet weekly on Thursdays from noon-1pm in David King Hall, room 2064. Please feel free to join us for any and all meetings. Below are the readings and topics we discussed in past meetings or what we intend to discuss in the upcoming meetings.

MRES Archives

Want to know what we have read and discussed over the past few years, please read the archives.

2008 Conferences

Fordham Council on Applied Psychometrics

  • Location and Date:
    Bronx, New York from June 26–27
  • Deadlines:
    Proposals for papers must be received by March 15
    Proposals for posters must be received by April 1

European Congress of Methodology

  • Location and Date:
    Oviedo, Spain from July 8th to 12th
  • Deadlines:
    Abstracts: March 30

Evaluation 2008

  • Location and Date:
    Denver, Colorado from November 5–8
  • Deadlines:
    Abstracts: March 14

This week’s meeting and readings

  • June 26th, 2008: Last meeting until we resume in August. We will discuss a somewhat obscure longitudinal model called the Gompertz curve. This chapter provides a bit of background on the subject. Please read pages 17 onward. If you are really interested, read the entire chapter.

Upcoming meetings

  • July 3rd, 2008: Travel prep prior to Spain.

  • July 10th, 2008: ECM conference in Oviedo, Spain

  • July 17th, 2008: ECM conference in Oviedo, Spain

  • July 24th, 2008: Travel

  • July 31st, 2008: R Summer School 2008

Past Agenda and Readings (sorted in reverse chronilogical order)

  • June 19th, 2008: I would like to go over one article contained in the current newsletter “The Political Methodologist”. In particular, the article on interdisciplinary training methods. I think most of us can identify with the problem of training ourselves and others how to be better methodologists. Psychologists are not alone. The brief article from the newsletter outlines different approaches to developing better skills in methodology. Do not hesitate to read the rest of the newsletter - it makes for a great read regardless of the discipline.

  • June 12th, 2008: Today we will discuss a statistical and methodological issue that seems to be more vexing to some than I anticipated. We will discuss two articles - one by David Kenny and the other by David Rogosa. We might take two weeks to go through the details. If there is sufficient interest, we can discuss an application of the method the following week (June 19th).

  • June 5th, 2008: I stumbled across this article the other day while trying to catch up on my general psychology reading. The article comes from the relatively new APS journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. I found this article rather compelling and thought it made for a nice transition to the cross-lagged discussion that comes up next week.

  • May 29th, 2008: We will discuss a brief article published in Science that details an interesting randomized controlled design in education. The implications of the study are profound if we hold that single studies are informative.

  • May 22nd, 2008: no meeting - APS in Chicago

  • May 15th, 2008: My friend Jim Coan sent me a thought-provoking article that pertains to the testing of scientific theories. We will discuss this article and talk about the implications of Silva’s approach.

  • May 8th, 2008: Innumeracy: I am always amazed at how reporters and scientists use numbers. They often use them as a club to convince readers of some point. A funny chiasmic quip that expresses the nature of how numbers are misused is mathematicians say things about numbers while politicians say things with numbers. A prime example comes from this recent Reuters press release and a more lengthy description from from Carl Bialik of the Wall Street Journal.

  • May 1st, 2008: Environmental and genetic influences on cognitive ability: Kerstin sent me a note two weeks ago that reminded me of a topic we touched upon in a previous meeting but did not have sufficient time to discuss at any depth. The article Kerstin sent was a summary of findings written by Richard Nisbett and published in the New York Times. I felt obligated to find a piece that at least characterized the other side of the argument so that the discussion might be reasonably balanced. The other side - as presented by Arthur Jensen - can be found in this nice summary article where Jensen reviews Stephen Jay Gould’s Mismeasure of Man. Read both and come prepared to discuss the problems with measuring general cognitive ability.

  • April 24th, 2008: Error detection in human judgment: Ever wonder if athletes who complain about judge’s calls are correct? Well George Mather had the same question and he went about addressing the question by using tennis data. The press picked up his story and ran wild with the results - as you can see from these articles. Mather was far more restrained in his generalization. I recommend you read the press releases and the original article.

  • April 17th, 2008: A colleague from Arizona sent me an interesting article on a real Bayesian application - boarding a plane in the most efficient manner. Several of us recently completed a course in Bayesian analyses and I thought this might be an interesting primer for the entire MRES group. I would like to hear your thoughts on this application and, perhaps how other problems in social science follow closely with this simple, yet complex problem. For those truly interested in the topic, I suggest you read Steffen’s article.

  • April 10th, 2008: Daragh Sibley sent me a nice article from Wired magazine that documented the now famous Netflix challenge. The challenge is to come up with a better prediction of renter’s movie preferences - for movies they have yet to rent from movies they already rented and rated. It is a fascinating story and one that ought to stir up an interesting discussion.

  • April 3rd, 2008: Our newest member Megan Osborne suggested a fine article by Larry Hedges. This is a great piece of work by a fine intellect. For those of you who often feel slighted by those in the physical and biological sciences, you might take heart in what Larry has to say when he compares the “soft” and “hard” sciences.

  • March 27th, 2008: No meeting.

  • March 20th, 2008: Naturalistic experiments Julius suggested this article on the relationship between arrests and re-offense in domestic violence. While many of you many not be interested in the topic, it does bring up some fascinating methodological problems that we all face.

  • March 13th, 2008: No meeting: SPRING BREAK

  • March 6th, 2008: No meeting: Patrick in Phoenix

  • February 28th, 2008: Counting the uncountable What happens when we try to count things that are inherently difficult if not impossible to count accurately? This article from the NEJM provides one account of how to use sampling to arrive at reasonable estimates.

  • February 21st, 2008: Data diagnostics There are no readings for this week. We will discuss various methods of checking data integrity. The meeting will consist of an interactive display; please send me any figures you have found helpful in diagnosing odd data problems.

  • February 14th, 2008: Here is an article about random processes in investments. The article is interesting for several reasons that pertain to social science and our reliance on the normal distribution.

  • February 7th, 2008: Ewart suggested an interesting topic. We shall discuss the ongoing experiment of matchmaking. This article from the NY Times offers a glimpse of the process. I would also like to quickly chat about this article marking the 3rd anniversary of Evolution Sunday.

  • January 31st, 2008: Today will discuss this brief article on checklists. Some of you may already be familiar with the role of checklists in aviation but few of us are familiar with checklists in medicine or any other area for that matter.

  • January 24th, 2008: First meeting of the calendar year. There are no readings to discuss. I would like to discuss several things during our meeting including 1) the upcoming data blitz, 2) several generalizability analysis results, 3) Spain, and 4) MRES meeting format (perfecting presentations, data blitz trial runs, and semester theme).

  • December 13th, 2007: Holiday meeting at Auld Shebeen

  • December 6th, 2007: No meeting. Patrick in DC.

  • November 29th, 2007: The general theme we have discussed this semester revolves around collaboration and framing in science. We also discussed authorship and how we might best measure scientific contributions by authorship ordering. Here is an article that proposes a slightly different solution from those we have already discussed.

  • November 22nd, 2007: Thanksgiving. Enjoy your family, friends, and meal.

  • November 15th, 2007: Since some of us are involved in the Bayesian course, I thought this article from the Wall Street Journal might be of general interest.

  • November 8th, 2007: No meeting due to AEA conference in Baltimore, MD.

  • November 1st, 2007: Here is an interesting article I would like to discuss about tailoring treatments to specific sub-populations. In particular, I think this article warrants a bit of attention for the author’s ability to carefully delineate the nature of weak science.

  • October 25th, 2007: Results from epidemiological studies often get far too much attention because many people misunderstand the distinction between science and public health. This article does a fine job of dispelling the myth of epidemiology and why we ought to take many findings with a huge grain of salt.

  • October 18th, 2007: Here is an excellent article that addresses whether critical thinking can be taught in schools. The author reviews the past efforts and then decomposes what is meant by critical thinking. This article ought to stir some interesting debate among MRES members. I look forward to the discussion.

  • October 11th, 2007: Team research seems to be the new trend in science. Fewer scientists are producing solo-authored papers. That trend may be positive in terms of scientific impact. Science recently published an article in May, 2007 that showed the citation rates of solo versus team authored publications. More recently though, some Science readers fired back with a few methodological concerns.

  • October 4th, 2007: Two articles on the interpretation of the intercept came to me by way of another list. The first article addresses the interpretation of the intercept while the second article addresses when we can or ought to drop the intercept from the model. I would like to discuss the implications of these articles and how they may be relevant to each of our respective areas of inquiry.

  • September 27th, 2007: Several weeks ago, Science published an article brief about a computer solution to checkers. I read the brief and thought about the problem but gave it not much thought afterward. This week’s Science (September 14th, 2007) has a more detailed article that is simply fascinating. We will discuss the article and how these methods might be applied to psychological science.

  • September 20th, 2007: We will discuss an article in the online magazine “The Scientist” that documents a rather novel approach to NIH funding.

  • September 13th, 2007: This article and the letters to the editor that followed track a very interesting debate about how to frame science. We had a lively discussion about the differences between advocacy and accessibility. Due to the interest, we might continue this discussion at another MRES meeting later this semester. UPDATE There was another article in The Scientist about framing that might be of some interest to those with strong opinions about selling science.

  • September 6th, 2007: We discussed this article at the meeting. The article is a brief account of who ranks those who rank universities (published in the August 24th issue of Science).

  • August 30th, 2007: Our first meeting of the academic year. I reviewed the R summer school event from early August. David Cades and Kidd updated us on their trip to Germany for ISSID.