Faculty Response
By Amy K. Dicke Bohmann
Assistant Professor of Psychology
The statistics course for the behavioral sciences is currently taught for psychology, sociology, and criminology students, as well as others. In the fall, we will split, and psychology faculty will teach their own course. The reason for this is that psychology also has a research methods course with a data analysis lab that is taken immediately following statistics. Not only do students take a statistics course that they find difficult, but they must then remember all that material the next semester for their lab.
When we mentioned to the students that we were thinking of integrating stat and research methods in one 2-semester course, so there would be less disconnect between the stat learned the first semester, and the computer-based data analysis learned the second semester, they were quite receptive. We are looking forward to this change in the fall. The students will continue to learn the same stat and research methods concepts, but the integration will hopefully help the students to understand the material. Integrating both stat and research methods into one course will also result in the stat that intimidates so many students being spread out into 2 semesters, as about half of the first semester chapters will focus on research methods. We hope this will make it less overwhelming.
With these changes, it is important for psychology majors currently taking stat to understand that the last traditional research methods class for psych will be offered in the fall. They must take it at that time, or they will have to take a 2-semester class to complete their research methods requirement.
It is also important for sociology and criminology majors to know that this change does not affect them, except for the fact that their stat professors will have the opportunity to tailor their stat classes to better fit those majors. It will not make stats easy by any means, but sometimes we are more motivated to learn concepts that seem to be more relevant to our own majors, and this could contribute to our success in those courses.
Bohmann can be reached at 210-784-2206 or by email, abohmann@tamusa.tamus.edu.
