Yesterday, on the final day of instruction for the Research & Methodologies unit in AP Psych, I wanted students to think of a research question, identify variables they could collect data on, collect data, and then run some basic stats on that data. It did not go well. At all[1].
Oh, sure, I think they had fun, and I think they gained a deeper understanding of the most common research method in psychological studies, but it doesn’t feel like they got as much out of the experience as I had hoped. Upon reflection, I identified three challenges that we faced:
- Students don’t understand how mathematical formulas work.
- Students don’t understand the rules of a library.
- Our sample sizes were too small.
First, several students initially chose research questions that involved non-numerical variables that they wouldn’t be able to put into a mathematical formula — such as eye color or favorite ice cream flavor. Of course there are ways around this, but those methods are outside the scope of one day’s lesson on survey design. More interesting to me is that students didn’t intuit that a math formula can’t take words.
On a related note, seniors really struggled using a spreadsheet. They needed more help than I expected using formulas (eg AVE, MEDIAN, MODE, RANGE, and CORREL).
Second, I received a kind and gentle email from our head librarian thanking me for using the library with my class, and asking that I simply remind students to be more mindful of other students using the library. She’s right of course. I told students on their way out the door to be quiet in the halls as they went to the first floor to find students to survey, but I neglected to remind them of the basic rule of every library in the world: whisper. Again, like the first point of failure, I’m kind of surprised that seniors don’t have this rule woven into the very fabric of their academic being.
Third, students surveyed between 20 and 30 schoolmates… and that’s just far too little to find any kind of correlation between the kinds of variables they were asking about (eg GPA and number of sports played; height and average hours of sleep per night; level of self-reported happiness and number of lifetime trips to a Disney themepark.)
As I said, it was fun, and I think students got something out of the day’s activity. I certainly had fun! But… it could have gone better.
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Part of this reflection is certainly tongue-in-cheek. ↩