Panic!: How can I TA stats when I don't remember much of it?!?!

[PamBeasLizLemo]

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I was very good at stats sophomore year of college, but I find that I have forgotten a lot of it. I will be given materials and have to teach a lab/ help prepare them for exams. I was wondering if anyone had any helpful suggestions on how to go about helping students with something that I don't remember how to do myself. Right about now I am having severe stress about this. Does anyone have any e-notes or helpful resources that I can use?

 

[TJuniper]

Watch youtube videos that teach the topic- some of them are really good. I've done that studying for a statistics class, and the videos are usually better than my teacher.

 

[psybee]

I was very good at stats sophomore year of college, but I find that I have forgotten a lot of it. I will be given materials and have to teach a lab/ help prepare them for exams. I was wondering if anyone had any helpful suggestions on how to go about helping students with something that I don't remember how to do myself. Right about now I am having severe stress about this. Does anyone have any e-notes or helpful resources that I can use?

Read the Andy Field and live the instructor support materials.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Sit down with the class text, some of your prof's outlines, and jump back in. It should come back pretty quickly.

 

[AryaStark]

http://davidmlane.com/hyperstat/

This is the best website I have ever seen. It breaks everything down by larger umbrella terms and then goes into GREAT GREAT details with explanations, examples, and diagrams. Also, it has a z-score calculator. I've NEVER seen anything like this haha.

 

[AryaStark]

Question: how far does the average intro stats class get? Is hypothesis testing and standard error the typical ending point? That's what it was for my class. We never actually got to ANOVAs.

 

[erg923]

I was very good at stats sophomore year of college, but I find that I have forgotten a lot of it. I will be given materials and have to teach a lab/ help prepare them for exams. I was wondering if anyone had any helpful suggestions on how to go about helping students with something that I don't remember how to do myself. Right about now I am having severe stress about this. Does anyone have any e-notes or helpful resources that I can use?

Just tell them 2+2=5....they wont know....

 

[Ollie123]

Question: how far does the average intro stats class get? Is hypothesis testing and standard error the typical ending point? That's what it was for my class. We never actually got to ANOVAs.

We technically got to ANOVA, but the prof was, to date, the worst teacher I have ever had in any subject in any grade. He had us doing the calculcations on multi-factor ANOVAs by hand, but never explained any of it beyond the formulas (which were often incorrect, so if you used the class material rather than the book you would get things wrong). It wasn't until a year later I even knew an ANOVA was used to compare different groups.

If you're asking because you are worried about grad school stats, don't. It moves fast, but they usually start at the beginning (remember, some people weren't psych undergrads and are coming in having never taken stats). Stats seems weird the way its done in undergrad since at least in my program, its an isolated course early on before you really have a sense of what "research" looks like, before you are reading papers, or have any context within which to understand it. I found the grad courses to be much more helpful.

 

[AryaStark]

Thanks Ollie! I actually am asking because I, too, am going to be an intro to stats TA and haven't taken it in a while. I've spent the majority of today going over the different sections I will need to teach. So far I've made it just past z-scores. I'm having a little trouble remembering sampling distributions and standard error.I'm sure the rest of the material will be difficult to remember too. I only recall going to Hypothesis testing, and it worried me a little bit to be TAing anything more advanced than that because I have only dealt with the rest in-- SPSS which isn't the same at all haha.

We technically got to ANOVA, but the prof was, to date, the worst teacher I have ever had in any subject in any grade. He had us doing the calculcations on multi-factor ANOVAs by hand, but never explained any of it beyond the formulas (which were often incorrect, so if you used the class material rather than the book you would get things wrong). It wasn't until a year later I even knew an ANOVA was used to compare different groups.

If you're asking because you are worried about grad school stats, don't. It moves fast, but they usually start at the beginning (remember, some people weren't psych undergrads and are coming in having never taken stats). Stats seems weird the way its done in undergrad since at least in my program, its an isolated course early on before you really have a sense of what "research" looks like, before you are reading papers, or have any context within which to understand it. I found the grad courses to be much more helpful.

 

[cara susanna]

I wish I knew what class I were TAing! I'm supposed to find out this week. :/

 

[cardamom]

We did ANOVAs in my undergrad intro stats class and calculated them by hand, as well as all of the other tests up until that point (z, t, etc), and we did correlations and some non-parametric stuff. I don't know how unusual that is, but while my school had a great clinical psych program, its undergrad program wasn't particularly rigorous overall, so I can't think it's that uncommon (although if it is, I feel lucky!). I would just find out what the syllabus for your class is going to be (the prof should have it or at least a very similar old one that you can review) though rather than worry too much either way before you know.

I wish I were TAing Stats! Instead at my school all of us first years have Intro.

 

[AryaStark]

whhhat I'd rather TA intro. Why the preference?

We did ANOVAs in my undergrad intro stats class and calculated them by hand, as well as all of the other tests up until that point (z, t, etc), and we did correlations and some non-parametric stuff. I don't know how unusual that is, but while my school had a great clinical psych program, its undergrad program wasn't particularly rigorous overall, so I can't think it's that uncommon (although if it is, I feel lucky!). I would just find out what the syllabus for your class is going to be (the prof should have it or at least a very similar old one that you can review) though rather than worry too much either way before you know.

I wish I were TAing Stats! Instead at my school all of us first years have Intro.

 

[279792]

Not sure if you will have to also teach SPSS for your TA class. As an undergrad, I remember having two parts of stats class - lecture and SPSS.

Here is an awesome book to help with SPSS if you do:

SPSS Survival Manual 3rd ed. Julie Pallant

Good luck.

 

[ClinicalTrainee]

When it comes to TAing, just remember that you know more than the students! You may be nervous about TAing stats because you haven't had it in awhile, but you *have* had it before and you'll probably be taking some grad level stats course too, which will help.

Students are notoriously freaked out about stats, even at the undergrad level. Hopefully your instructor will give you a guide of what you're supposed to cover in discussion sections (and a key for the homework assignments), but if not, just make sure you're about a week ahead of the students and you'll be fine.

I have to say, TAing stats has really helped me to solidify my own knowledge. I've twice TA'd for a graduate level stats class and it's helped me understand variance partitioning and some minutae of ANOVA and regression I certainly didn't have when I took the course myself. I felt that way about TAing undergrad stats too, at a less complicated level.

Though...I didn't really have a handle on sampling distributions until well over that TA was over......

 

[cardamom]

whhhat I'd rather TA intro. Why the preference?

Because I like stats (shocking I know) and in my experience thus far, the more you teach it, the better your own knowledge is. I tutored it in undergrad and while I did well in the class before, my understanding was much deeper after that. Also, I found tutoring it satisfying, as you get a lot of aha! moments with the students who are willing to try, and I enjoyed the challenge of figuring out how to explain the concepts and how to use the formulas to different students. Then again, as said before, I'm a stats geek, so your mileage may vary.