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Statistics & Research Methods
methods instructors consider barriers that may preclude their students from learning how
to think critically about the information they encounter in their courses and beyond.
Below we discuss some of the more prominent barriers that may make it especially difficult
to teach critical thinking in statistics and research methods.
Required Courses
Quite often, students view statistics and research methods as necessary evils rather than as
courses that are valuable in their own right—they are prerequisites they must take before
they can move on to other “real” psychology courses. Consequently, students who think they
have no say in their decision to take these courses may not be motivated to learn, or think
critically, about course content.
Students Dislike “Math”
Another barrier to teaching critical thinking is students’ self-reported dislike of math.
However, most understand that it is their duty to forge through an anxiety-provoking
semester of statistics, so they can take other, more “interesting” psychology courses.
Unfortunately, many are disappointed to find that their research methods courses contain
considerable discussion of these much-maligned topics (Saville, 2008). Consequently, the
“math phobia” that often grips students in their statistics courses sometimes carries over
into their research methods courses, again providing a barrier that teachers must overcome
in hopes of getting their students to think critically about statistics and research
methods.
Misconceptions About, and Dislike of, Science
Ask students to state what they know about the particulars of science, and one may come
to realize that (a) students often possess misconceptions about science in general and
about psychology as a science in particular; and (b) students tend not to have positive
views of science or, if they are indifferent toward it, tend to state that science is something
in which they are not that interested. For example, there is a common notion that psychol-
ogy is one of the humanities and consists of topics that researchers cannot study scientifically
(Saville, 2008). Similarly, although most people have positive views of psychology, some
tend to hold negative views of science (Webb & Speer, 1985; Wood, Jones, & Benjamin,
1986), suggesting that there is a disconnection between what people know about
psychology and what they know about science. How students acquire these misconceptions
and dislikes is beyond the focus of this chapter (see Chew, 2005; Taylor & Kowalski,
2004). Nevertheless, misconceptions about science often make it difficult for teachers to
get their students to think critically about course material, especially when the material
seems to many students to be more scientific—and thus less interesting—than some of the
material they encounter in their other courses.