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spunky

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  1. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from EliaEmmers in Can we talk about the Michael LaCour falsified research debacle?   
    I honestly feel that replication wasn’t sexy a few years ago but it is starting to become increasingly popular and very much in-demand in certain areas of the social sciences.
     
    Last year, for instance (link: http://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/09/results.aspx) the American Psychological Association, APA,  reported on a $10 MILLION dollar grant that was given to the Centre for Open Science which focuses greatly on replication research. The Association for Psychological Science has its own Registered Replication initiative (https://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/replication) where people are encouraged to follow-up on the work of well-known psychological studies just to make sure the effects they claim to exist are reproducible. I mentioned the Diederik Stapel debacle before because if Political Science decides to follow on Psychology’s footsteps and learn from its mistakes, it may start becoming a lot more interested in replication studies. I feel like a lot of what is going on is still in its infancy and many of the measures being taken might be somewhat misdirected, but at least more and more people are becoming aware of this issue and the importance that it has to further our field as a science. It’s also indirectly making a lot of people very interested in statistics so that always puts a smile on my face
     
    Stapel’s data fraud (which is remarkably similar to what happened with LaCour) has forced social psychologists (and Psychology in general, actually) to have a very honest look in the mirror and come to terms with the fact that they haven’t been as careful as they should have been in terms of how they conduct and publish their research. Things like the file-drawer effect from meta-analysis, questionable statistics, transparency in terms of data sharing, etc. are becoming more and more important in the eyes of journal editors and the community of scientific psychology in general.  I find it a little bit ironic (and sad) that each area of the social sciences needs to have its own personalized ‘scandal’ before they start questioning their own practices though. Both of the authors in the article you posted are political scientists and they both claim that replication studies are not sexy in their area. Psychology was like that 5-6 years ago but nowadays a good replication study can easily lead to a publication in a top journal.
     
    You do bring an interesting point though in terms of the qualitative VS quantitative methodologies in the social sciences. My guess is that replication studies are “a thing” in quantitatively-bent social sciences (of which Psychology and Political Science are preeminent examples) but I’m not sure whether this same paradigm would make sense in, I dunno, anthropology or so. I mean, for replication to take place you kinda have to buy into the idea that the phenomenon under study exists outside of your own perception of it AND it can be measured. Otherwise you wouldn’t expect its influence to manifest itself repeatedly across various samples of the same population.  
  2. Downvote
    spunky got a reaction from artsy16 in The Ph.D. Pay Gap   
    aww... don't leave! plz! this topic is so ratchet and has gone in so many different directions that i'm now addicted to it. it has everything! generalization fallacies, complaints about fictitious subsidies that don't exist, thinly-veiled arguments in favour of the the natural sciences over the social sciences... gosh, if we can throw in a Agatha-Christie-style murder in here it would be PERFECT  
  3. Upvote
    spunky reacted to Cheshire_Cat in The Ph.D. Pay Gap   
    Speaking of that... Business school pwns social and hard sciences both.  Just sayin'.  But we are kind of the red-headed step children of academia.  Probably because everyone else is jealous.  We don't have to write grants much, and accounting students can get jobs ABD making 90k a year...
    Crap, I'm gonna be the one getting murdered.
  4. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from Vene in The Ph.D. Pay Gap   
    aww... don't leave! plz! this topic is so ratchet and has gone in so many different directions that i'm now addicted to it. it has everything! generalization fallacies, complaints about fictitious subsidies that don't exist, thinly-veiled arguments in favour of the the natural sciences over the social sciences... gosh, if we can throw in a Agatha-Christie-style murder in here it would be PERFECT  
  5. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from hi everyone in Applying to PHD programs without much of a psych background   
    Uhm…. I think you’re misinterpreting what I said.  I never said that only people who are in well-known labs with well-known PIs will get into clinical programs. What I’m saying is that there is a big spectrum of possibilities in cases like this and each one can offset any potential negative consequences of others.  For example, if the OP got into Dr Kahneman’s lab from Princeton and ended up even with a conference paper where (s)he’s somewhere in the author list, I can guarantee you that nobody would care about only having 6 months of experience. The reputation of the PI and the lab would outweigh that. But if you can’t get into a place like that then yeah, sure, time starts to matter a little bit more.
     
    That’s why I said it would be important to know more about the OP potential (and realistic) options to see whether 6 months could be enough or not. 
  6. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from hi everyone in Applying to PHD programs without much of a psych background   
    this is a little bit vague because it depends on many things: which lab you're applying to work in, who is the PI, the area of study, your role within research, whether or not you get a publication out of it, etc...
     
    like if you work in a nameless university that has a nameless lab and all you do is run participants well.. yeah, you're not gonna get much *oomph* on that CV of yours to get into a good school. but if you're working in a well-known lab with a well-known PI and you end up getting some sort of authorship in a published paper, i'm sure that would make you a really good candidate. 
     
    just as  with most things in life, the answer to this one is a big *it depends*. although there is one sure thing here: having the experience of working in a lab is better than not having the experience, regardless of the lab/research/your role/etc. 
  7. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from hi everyone in Applying to PHD programs without much of a psych background   
    THIS. research experience can make or break an application, particularly in competitive areas like clinical psych. 
  8. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from Piagetsky in Applying to PHD programs without much of a psych background   
    THIS. research experience can make or break an application, particularly in competitive areas like clinical psych. 
  9. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from lewin in McGill vs Harvard   
    GIVE ME ACADEMIA OR GIVE ME DEATH!!!!!!
  10. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from twentysix in McGill vs Harvard   
    GIVE ME ACADEMIA OR GIVE ME DEATH!!!!!!
  11. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from LaSombra in Sole authorship when getting hired as a prof... is it a BIG DEAL?   
    thankz peeps.
     
    i think it is probably an area-specific thing because (although rare) i do find that most people into quant do have, at the very least, one or two solo publications. i guess since we don't have to go through the process of recruiting research participants or dealing with ethics committees and things like that (or even needing to interact with... you know, humans) it is expected that people in my area should be able to do research by themselves. 
     
    oh well... i guess one more thing to add to the checklist *sigh*
  12. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from MidwesternAloha in Struggling for clinical work, can I even handle it?!   
    uhm... fake it 'till you make it? in about half of the research jobs i applied for i knew i was not qualified for them. yet i always said i was an expert in whatever they wanted me to be an expert on and, once i landed the job, i would hit the books/Google HARD to master those skills. getting a job out there is not easy and i don't think most of us have the time to second-guess ourselves at the risk of end up missing out on important opportunities. 
     
    given your experience, i'd say you at least have the skills to learn whatever extra things any job position expects from you. so take a deep breath, keep calm and carry on ;-)
  13. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from TheMercySeat in Employment prospects: degree from an R2 university   
    sorry, i guess my comment was out for more general "industry-type" jobs but i just noticed that you're specifically inquiring about research jobs, just outside of a traditional academic setting (e.g. university). then yeah, i totally agree with you. sometimes the pettiness of people in places like that irks me because they seem to marry the worst of both industry and academic jobs. the prestige of your university suddenly becomes a thing, the prestige of your lab is also relevant, whether your advisor is well known or not... sigh. i only once worked in a place like that (a research company that's somehow indirectly connected to my uni) and it.was.HELL.
     
    still, let's just assess the situation objectively. you're in an R2 university now. can you transfer to an R1 university with all the goodies and perks of where you are? if yes, go. if no (which is the most likely possibility) i guess you're gonna have to work twice as hard to make up for the lack of academic "pedigree" so that's more conferences to go to, more networking, tackling on more ambitious projects... basically just make yourself a candidate that's too good to say not to. like a molten lava cake! 
  14. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from TheMercySeat in Employment prospects: degree from an R2 university   
    i've always been under the impression that if you're not interested in an academic job, then the kind of opportunities you will have access to are mostly be limited to things like how well can you network, how much previous experience you have, etc. you know, regular 'job' stuff. i find it difficult to believe that any person in a non-academic setting will look at your CV and say "oh yes, this candidate is a member of such and such lab with publications in such and such high-impact factor journals". or at least that has been my experience in my musings with jobs in the "real world" (<--- stoopid "real world" jobs, the only reason i don't hate your jobs is that they pay well.. )
  15. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from virtua in Visa: How can I work off-campus?   
    this sounds so alien to me...
    ... in Canada you get a full work permit with your student visa. even as an undergrad you get it... :/
  16. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from Pennywise in Low quant GRE: successes and failures   
    About a couple of years ago or so I took an internship on ETS and was particularly interested in working in the department that handles the GRE (& all the other post-grad tests like the PRAXIS and whatnot). Here are some of the things I took home from them:
     
    - Every single study where the ETS claims you shouldn’t use a cut-off score is merely a formality that they use to prevent getting sued. Think about it… they want to sell you a product and then they’re gonna bash it? Of course not! Heck, if they were not sued they’d probably trumpet them as the secret oracle of success in graduate school. There are lists of results that are available to the public and there are lists of results that are only privy to ‘clients’ (e.g. universities). It’s mostly technical stuff and I never saw one but I knew from the people who worked on them that they were mostly devoted to come up with “diagnostic scores” which is the euphemism ETS uses for cut-scores. Funding agencies, AdComms, everybody is always asking you for the cut-score because they all need to make quick, easy decisions. Whether the decision is accurately reflected by the score or not is mostly irrelevant. That is one of the many dirty little secrets out there that you get to learn about if you hang around ETS.
     
    - If a uni says the GRE is not required but ‘recommended’ you can bet your brownies they will use it against you.
     
    - Psych (& other social sciences programs) relies on the quantitative score on the GRE for a very simple reason: it’s the one where psych majors tend to score the lowest. Just look at the table on p. 29 (http://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_guide.pdf). You can see that around 60% of people with a major in Psych just meeerely scratched above the 50 th percentile.
     
    The fact of the matter is that the number of GRE test takers is increasing exponentially and, with that, the number of applications that Psych (and other grad) departments receive every year. This is especially true after the 2008 crisis and the loss of value in a college degree. Anyone who has glanced at the sheer number of apps that departments receive every year knows that no prof is gonna take the time to look through 100s upon 100s of applications, especially if the POI is well-known and the program is prestigious. For clinical in my uni, for example, we got WAY over 300 applications for like… maybe 7-8 positions? No department is interested in spending the resources to evaluate applications holistically so unless there is something that REALLY makes you stand out (funding, publications in prestigious journals, your POI knows you, etc.) people are probably gonna default back to the GRE.
     
    I dunno but I really don’t see this situation improving in any way in the short term, especially as the love affair between the U.S. and standardized testing just becomes deeper and deeper. 
  17. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from TenaciousBushLeaper in MD (Psychiatry) or PhD (Social Psychology)?   
    ( **giggidy) 
  18. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from TenaciousBushLeaper in The politics behind PhD admissions?   
    OH, well that changes things. but it sorta makes sense though... have you watched the Ivory Tower  documentary?  a few of the things they say are a little bit "out there" but one where they hit the nail on the head is when they make the case of the "for-profit" university model that is becoming so pervasive across North America. the crux of the issue is that unless you're part of a "brandname" university (e.g. Harvard, Standford, Yale, etc.) it makes economic sense for other universities to accept as many undergraduate students as they can as long as they come with a bag full of money to dump in the university... cue in the student debt crisis now.  
  19. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from when in On 2% Acceptance Rates - Is the (Social)Psychology PhD a Crapshoot?   
    what....what is this strange feeling?
     
    COMPETITION?
     

  20. Upvote
    spunky reacted to TheMercySeat in On 2% Acceptance Rates - Is the (Social)Psychology PhD a Crapshoot?   
    "Who did you study with? ...I never heard of him."

    (My internal dialogue) "Funny... I never heard of you, either. Oh, that's why... While you and your colleagues fight over 100k grants, my colleagues win multimillion dollar research grants."

    I am quickly losing faith in this process
  21. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from TheMercySeat in On 2% Acceptance Rates - Is the (Social)Psychology PhD a Crapshoot?   
    well... did you notice that ini mini tiny little note on how the NSF (or any other federal agency) defines 'unemployment'?
     
    it's Footnote #4 here: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf14310/(or in any other of their footnotes):
     
    Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work.
      Which means:   - if you have been looking for work for longer than 4 weeks at the time of the survey, you didn't get counted. - if you don't have a job but have stopped looking because you're discouraged/tired you don't get counted (<-- happens A LOT in post-recession economies) - if you're on some sort of disability or had a child or something, even though you still need a job then you also don't get counted.   so i always tend to feel iffy about these unemployment statistics. plus, like <ian> said, we need focus on the much more pervasive and much harder to measure cousin of unemployment, UNDERemployment . right next to my apartment building there's this lady with an MA in School Psych serving tea in a fancy tea house. the NSF (or its Canadian equivalent) would not count her as 'unemployed' yet i'm willing to bet my brownies you don't need an MA to serve tea. and this is what i think most people are interested in knowing.     i'm currently looking for the APA source where i found that more PhD earners in Psychology are part-time employed now that full-time employed, which i think tends to paint a better picture of these trends but i'm being unsuccessful     overall, i do like the "cautiously optimistic" approach you preach. my grandma used to call it something like "prepare for the worst but hope for the best". there is at least ONE marketable skill that anyone with a PhD in Psychology can always bank on, regardless of the area: we know how to do research. now, research can take many shapes and forms, but we all have to learn at least the very basics of it and i think if anyone can focus on how to expand that into other more applied settings, then you do have at least a slight advantage over your average recent-college grad.   if EVERTHING else fails peepz, just remember at least one thing: Jenna Marbles has a Master's Degree in Sports/Counselling Psych from BostonU and she's the 7th most-subscribed youtuber! if she can do it, so can you! put your degree to a good use!  
  22. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from nixy in On 2% Acceptance Rates - Is the (Social)Psychology PhD a Crapshoot?   
    well... did you notice that ini mini tiny little note on how the NSF (or any other federal agency) defines 'unemployment'?
     
    it's Footnote #4 here: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf14310/(or in any other of their footnotes):
     
    Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work.
      Which means:   - if you have been looking for work for longer than 4 weeks at the time of the survey, you didn't get counted. - if you don't have a job but have stopped looking because you're discouraged/tired you don't get counted (<-- happens A LOT in post-recession economies) - if you're on some sort of disability or had a child or something, even though you still need a job then you also don't get counted.   so i always tend to feel iffy about these unemployment statistics. plus, like <ian> said, we need focus on the much more pervasive and much harder to measure cousin of unemployment, UNDERemployment . right next to my apartment building there's this lady with an MA in School Psych serving tea in a fancy tea house. the NSF (or its Canadian equivalent) would not count her as 'unemployed' yet i'm willing to bet my brownies you don't need an MA to serve tea. and this is what i think most people are interested in knowing.     i'm currently looking for the APA source where i found that more PhD earners in Psychology are part-time employed now that full-time employed, which i think tends to paint a better picture of these trends but i'm being unsuccessful     overall, i do like the "cautiously optimistic" approach you preach. my grandma used to call it something like "prepare for the worst but hope for the best". there is at least ONE marketable skill that anyone with a PhD in Psychology can always bank on, regardless of the area: we know how to do research. now, research can take many shapes and forms, but we all have to learn at least the very basics of it and i think if anyone can focus on how to expand that into other more applied settings, then you do have at least a slight advantage over your average recent-college grad.   if EVERTHING else fails peepz, just remember at least one thing: Jenna Marbles has a Master's Degree in Sports/Counselling Psych from BostonU and she's the 7th most-subscribed youtuber! if she can do it, so can you! put your degree to a good use!  
  23. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from BCB in On 2% Acceptance Rates - Is the (Social)Psychology PhD a Crapshoot?   
    well... did you notice that ini mini tiny little note on how the NSF (or any other federal agency) defines 'unemployment'?
     
    it's Footnote #4 here: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf14310/(or in any other of their footnotes):
     
    Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work.
      Which means:   - if you have been looking for work for longer than 4 weeks at the time of the survey, you didn't get counted. - if you don't have a job but have stopped looking because you're discouraged/tired you don't get counted (<-- happens A LOT in post-recession economies) - if you're on some sort of disability or had a child or something, even though you still need a job then you also don't get counted.   so i always tend to feel iffy about these unemployment statistics. plus, like <ian> said, we need focus on the much more pervasive and much harder to measure cousin of unemployment, UNDERemployment . right next to my apartment building there's this lady with an MA in School Psych serving tea in a fancy tea house. the NSF (or its Canadian equivalent) would not count her as 'unemployed' yet i'm willing to bet my brownies you don't need an MA to serve tea. and this is what i think most people are interested in knowing.     i'm currently looking for the APA source where i found that more PhD earners in Psychology are part-time employed now that full-time employed, which i think tends to paint a better picture of these trends but i'm being unsuccessful     overall, i do like the "cautiously optimistic" approach you preach. my grandma used to call it something like "prepare for the worst but hope for the best". there is at least ONE marketable skill that anyone with a PhD in Psychology can always bank on, regardless of the area: we know how to do research. now, research can take many shapes and forms, but we all have to learn at least the very basics of it and i think if anyone can focus on how to expand that into other more applied settings, then you do have at least a slight advantage over your average recent-college grad.   if EVERTHING else fails peepz, just remember at least one thing: Jenna Marbles has a Master's Degree in Sports/Counselling Psych from BostonU and she's the 7th most-subscribed youtuber! if she can do it, so can you! put your degree to a good use!  
  24. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from TenaciousBushLeaper in Quantitative Psychology PhD   
    YESHHH!!! that sound that you just heard is the door of opportunity cracking open... go run through it! save yourself!
  25. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from TenaciousBushLeaper in Quantitative Psychology PhD   
    this joke makes more sense if you've watched the last movie from "The Hobbit"
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