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I've seen similar sample sizes in medical journals, but I wouldn't necessarily call those junk. From my personal experience, the problem is that people who stu

by ellisv 3y ago

I've seen similar sample sizes in medical journals, but I wouldn't necessarily call those junk. From my personal experience, the problem is that people who study psychology are not interested or skilled in statistics. Unskilled professors teaching uninterested students perpetuates the cycle. The field is slowly improving but still has a long way to go.

p-e-w 3y ago
> I've seen similar sample sizes in medical journals, but I wouldn't necessarily call those junk. Unless those small sample sizes are justified by rigorous statistical modeling, showing that the result is still significant even with the small sample size, such studies absolutely are junk. The burden is on the researcher to demonstrate that their experimental design is suitable for obtaining meaningful results. Failing to do so is the definition of junk science. And needless to say, lack of statistical knowledge is not an excuse for not doing this. If a medical scientist is unable to perform an accurate statistical analysis of their data, it means that they cannot publish – not that they can skip that part because it's too difficult for them. The entire study is meaningless without it.
- weberson 3y ago
  Analysis of statistical power is a super basic thing and is a normal part of research in medicine, psychology, social sciences ... etc.
- lanstin 3y ago
  Sample size is just one factor. For example, if you are interested in heights and you measure six people and they are all over 10 feet tall, you can go ahead and conclude they are from a group with different height distribution than the rest of humans. Pretending that these papers of “wow, we found a substance that when given to ten people in a cancer group with a 99% six month lethality and three survived more than two years” contribute nothing is a weird belief. Penicillin was what n = 1.
2devnull 3y ago
Psychology attracts people who are interested in working with people than working with things. If you include the undergrads, psychology has a lower IQ (on average!) than say mathematics or engineering, or other soft sciences like economics or data science. But you shouldn’t judge a group by its average. Also, it’s misogynistic in this case, obviously.

by ellisv 3y ago

p-e-w 3y ago

> I've seen similar sample sizes in medical journals, but I wouldn't necessarily call those junk. Unless those small sample sizes are justified by rigorous statistical modeling, showing that the result is still significant even with the small sample size, such studies absolutely are junk. The burden is on the researcher to demonstrate that their experimental design is suitable for obtaining meaningful results. Failing to do so is the definition of junk science. And needless to say, lack of statistical knowledge is not an excuse for not doing this. If a medical scientist is unable to perform an accurate statistical analysis of their data, it means that they cannot publish – not that they can skip that part because it's too difficult for them. The entire study is meaningless without it.

weberson 3y ago
Analysis of statistical power is a super basic thing and is a normal part of research in medicine, psychology, social sciences ... etc.
lanstin 3y ago
Sample size is just one factor. For example, if you are interested in heights and you measure six people and they are all over 10 feet tall, you can go ahead and conclude they are from a group with different height distribution than the rest of humans. Pretending that these papers of “wow, we found a substance that when given to ten people in a cancer group with a 99% six month lethality and three survived more than two years” contribute nothing is a weird belief. Penicillin was what n = 1.

2devnull 3y ago

Psychology attracts people who are interested in working with people than working with things. If you include the undergrads, psychology has a lower IQ (on average!) than say mathematics or engineering, or other soft sciences like economics or data science. But you shouldn’t judge a group by its average. Also, it’s misogynistic in this case, obviously.