Bing - You've captured one of what I believe to be several dualities of effective teaching. When I teach quant courses I stress the art vs. science aspects of the techniques we learn. (Then I explain to them how easy they have it with point & click SPSS rather than the old SPSS/PC+ DOS-based coding we had to learn for you back in the day. You know - up hill, both ways - that sort of thing.)
I still go more under the hood with SPSS, but what impresses me (or intimidates) is the profusion of new stat options. (Actually still nothing actually intimidates. lol) I would emphasize exploratory analysis and see it as a way of interrogating experience. Experience, that is, of a particular kind. There are lots of problems with "confirmation." I did some analysis with enrollment data last year for a Columbus university. I found that path analysis was productive of ideas and it's a somewhat appealing way of setting up an inquiry. Be great to talk with you about education next time you are in town. [Is wine an excuse for talking about ideas, or are ideas an excuse for drinking wine?] Stay on life's lower decks! Bing
Bing - You've captured one of what I believe to be several dualities of effective teaching. When I teach quant courses I stress the art vs. science aspects of the techniques we learn. (Then I explain to them how easy they have it with point & click SPSS rather than the old SPSS/PC+ DOS-based coding we had to learn for you back in the day. You know - up hill, both ways - that sort of thing.)
I still go more under the hood with SPSS, but what impresses me (or intimidates) is the profusion of new stat options. (Actually still nothing actually intimidates. lol) I would emphasize exploratory analysis and see it as a way of interrogating experience. Experience, that is, of a particular kind. There are lots of problems with "confirmation." I did some analysis with enrollment data last year for a Columbus university. I found that path analysis was productive of ideas and it's a somewhat appealing way of setting up an inquiry. Be great to talk with you about education next time you are in town. [Is wine an excuse for talking about ideas, or are ideas an excuse for drinking wine?] Stay on life's lower decks! Bing