Welcome
Welcome to the ITNS blog, our internet home designed to help students, teachers, and others get the 
most out of Introduction to the New Statistics. For more information about the book, see the publisher’s page for ITNS here. At that page, click ‘Look inside’ to see the Contents, Preface, and Chapter 1 in full.
What will you find here?
- Blog posts from Geoff and Bob with musings and new articles related to the New Statistics and Open Science
- Information about the first book, Understanding the New Statistics
- Previous versions of ESCI: Use the ‘ESCI’ tab at the top of this page
Looking for instructor resources? These are on the publisher’s companion website for the book here.
Are you a student looking to download ESCI, data sets, flashcards, or other resources? These are on the publisher’s companion website for the book here.
- Resources from SFN’s Ask an Expert event on Power and Estimation - On 6/4/2020 the Society for Neuroscience (SFN) hosted an an "Ask and Expert" online webinar on power and estimation. Short presentations on the topic were first posted here as a catalyst to generate questions and comments to discuss during a live session. This post is just to organize links and… …
Resources from SFN’s Ask an Expert event on Power and Estimation Read More »
- The esci module for jamovi - Today there's a new module available in jamovi: esci (effect sizes and confidence intervals), developed by Bob Calin-Jageman and Geoff Cumming (@TheNewStats and TheNewStatistics.com). As a newer module you will need a recent version of jamovi to install esci--probably 1.2.19 or above. You can refresh your install of jamovi here.… …
- JAMA Opposes p<.05 Decision Making - A recent viewpoint article (free download) in JAMA argues that decisions should not be based on mere p value criteria, but need "consideration of the outcome in terms of effect size and accompanying CIs, [and] placing the findings from the trial in the context of the totality of the existing… …
- Mega Studies Need Inference by Interval (or: Point Nulls are Especially Pointless when N is Large) - I (Bob) love large-scale collaborative projects (Many Labs, Many Babies, Psych Science Accelerator, etc.). I like the teamwork involved. I like the careful deliberation over study materials. I like the large sample sizes and the hopes of investigating how psychological phenomena vary over labs, languages, and culture. Mega studies aren't… …
- A Cliff at p=.05? Recent Evidence Suggests Yes - In brief: Two studies provide yet more evidence that researchers make poorer interpretations when they focus on statistical significance testing and its .05 threshold. Statisticians make similar errors, although in some situations to a lesser extent than do other researchers. Both statisticians and epidemiologists show, in some situations, clear evidence… …
- The Shape of a Confidence Interval: Cat’s Eye or Plausibility Picture, and What About Cliff? - In brief: Curves picture how likelihood varies across and beyond a CI. Which is better: One curve (plausibility picture) or two (cat's eye)? Which should we use in ITNS2? Curves can discourage dichotomous decision making based on a belief that there's a cliff in strength of evidence at each limit… …
- The ASA and p Values: Here We Go Again - The above announcement is from the February ASA (American Statistical Association) newsletter. (See p. 7 for the announcement and the list of 15 members of the Task Force.) Why won't statistical significance simply whither and die, taking p<.05 and maybe even p values with it? The ASA needs a Task… …
- Not so Difficult? This Parrot ‘Gets’ Statistical Inference - If you have tramped or climbed in New Zealand's high country, as I did for a couple of months many moons ago, you've probably spent hours watching kea exploring or 'playing'. Kea are large parrots with wicked-looking beaks that are highly social, and notorious among mountaineers for their ability to… …
Not so Difficult? This Parrot ‘Gets’ Statistical Inference Read More »
- What Psychology Teachers Should Know About Open Science and the New Statistics - Bob recently tweeted about this great paper of his, with Beth Morling: Morling, B., & Calin-Jageman, R. J., (2020). What Psychology Teachers Should Know About Open Science and the New Statistics. Teaching of Psychology, 47 (2), 169-179. doi: 10.1177/0098628320901372 First, here's the overview diagram, a great teaching explainer in itself: I… …
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- A Tribute to Wayne Velicer - Wayne Velicer was a giant among quantitative psychologists and health researchers, among other groups. I was very fortunate to be able to call him a colleague and good friend. Sadly, he died too young, in October 2017. The journal Multivariate Behavioral Research has just published online-before-print a tribute to Wayne.… …
- Teaching in the New Era of Psychological Science - A great collection of articles in the latest issue of PLAT. Contents page here. At that page, click to see the abstract of any article. A big shout out to the wonderful editorial team that assembled this special issue: Susan A. Nolan (Seton Hall University, USA), Tamarah Smith (Gwynedd Mercy… …
Teaching in the New Era of Psychological Science Read More »
- Bushfires and Open Science: A View From Australia - Our Family Summer in a Time of Fires We're just back home after a couple of weeks at the big old family beach house. We had one stinking hot day, 40+ degrees, but, strangely, other days were cool to cold, usually with strong swirly winds. So different from the long… …
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- Banishing “Black/White Thinking” - eNeuro publishes some teaching guidance You may recall that eNeuro published a great editorial and a supporting paper by Bob and me--mainly Bob. Info is here. It has now published a lovely article giving teaching advice about ways to undermine students' natural tendency to think dichotomously. If I could wave… …
- Farewell and Thanks Steve Lindsay - Psychological Science, the journal, has for years pushed hard for publication of better, more trustworthy research. First there was the leadership of Eric Eich, then Steve Lindsay energetically took the baton. Steve is about to finish, no doubt to his great relief. His 'swan song' editorial has just come online,… …
- NeuRA Ahead of the Open Science Curve - I had great fun yesterday visiting NeuRA (Neuroscience Research Australia), a large research institute in Sydney. I was hosted by Simon Gandevia, Deputy Director, who has been a long-time proponent of Open Science and The New Statistics. Neura's Research Quality page describes the quality goals they have adopted, at the initiative… …
- I Join an RCT: A View From the Other Side - In ITNS we discuss randomized control trials (RCTs) and I've taught about them since whenever. If done well, they should provide gold standard evidence about the benefits and harms of a therapy. So I was particularly interested to be invited to join a large RCT. My wife, Lindy, and I… …
- Replications: How Should We Analyze the Results? - Does This Effect Replicate? It seems almost irresistible to think in terms of such a dichotomous question! We seem to crave an 'it-did' or 'it-didn't' answer! However, rarely if ever is a bald yes-no decision the most informative way to think about replication. One of the first large studies in… …
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- ‘Preregistration’ or ‘Registration’? - For years, medicine has urged the 'registration' of clinical trials before data collection starts. More recently, psychology has come to use the term 'preregistration' for this vital component of Open Science. The 'pre' puts it in your face that it happens at the start, but should we fall into line… …
- Congratulations Professor Fiona Fidler! - Just as the fabulous AIMOS Conference -- one of Fiona's most recent triumphs -- was wrapping, it was announced officially that Fiona Fidler has been appointed as full PROFESSOR at the University of Melbourne. Wonderful news! Wow, when Simine Vazire arrives at the University of Melbourne next year, also as… …
- AIMOS — The New Interdisciplinary Meta-Research and Open Science Association - Association for Interdisciplinary Meta-Research & Open Science (AIMOS) I had a fascinating two days down at the University of Melbourne last week for the first AIMOS conference. The program is here and you can click through to see details of the sessions. Congratulations to Fiona Fidler and her team for… …
AIMOS — The New Interdisciplinary Meta-Research and Open Science Association Read More »