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Category: Teaching resources. These pages present teaching resources that I have found. Pages are listed by date with the most recent entries at the top. You can find the theme and closely related categories and other resources at the bottom of this page.
Stats: I hate bad research examples (April 23, 2008). Someone wrote in asking if I know of any good examples of research studies that illustrate problems of making false generalizations. I had to mention my book, of course, which has lots of commentary of actual publications, most of which are open source and freely available on the web. For what it’s worth, I do have a pedagogical bone to pick. I believe it is not a good idea to find a “bad” publication and tear it apart.
Stats: What sort of statistical training is needed for basic scientists? (March 29, 2008). Someone wrote to a mailing list sponsored by the American Statistical Association asking about what resources to use in a statistics class aimed at basic scientists (as opposed to public health students and clinical scientists). I offered a few general recommendations.
Stats: Statistics for Boards (March 25, 2008). I was asked to give a talk to the medical residents with the title "Statistics for Boards". Many health care professionals need to take boards or other certifying examinations during their training and afterwards to certify or re-certify their skill in an area. These boards often ask some basic statistics questions. A common theme appears to be, what statistic should I use in what situation. The answer often depends on what the predictor variable is and what the outcome variable is.
Stats: What have you changed your mind about (January 18, 2008). A group called The Edge (www.edge.org) asks a question each year of prominent scientists and a few select non-scientists. This group represents from a broad range of backgrounds and disciplines and provides an interesting variety of responses. Questions asked in the past include: What are you optimistic about?, What is your dangerous idea?, and What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it? Just recently, this group published responses to the 2008 question: What have you changed your mind about? Why? Several of the responses touch directly or indirectly on Statistics.
Stats: Educational and networking opportunities for statisticians in the Kansas City area (October 4, 2007). There are three groups that offer seminars, training classes and informal networking opportunities for statisticians in the Kansas City area.
Stats: Classic references in evidence based medicine (May 16, 2007). A couple of weeks ago, a regular correspondent (PG) on the Evidence Based Health email discussion group asked about what were the essential readings in Evidence Based Medicine (EBM). These are articles beyond simple tutorials that are aimed at those who want more specifics about EBM. The articles that this person suggested are quite good. Here are some additional articles that may be helpful. They are organized in a variety of topics.
Stats: Where can you find interesting case studies in Statistics? (May 2, 2007). Someone wrote in to the MedStats email discussion group and asked about where to find interesting articles with full free text and sufficient detail that students could calculate some of the statistics on their own. This person had relied on BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal), which is a source that I have also found useful.
Stats: Teaching Statistics, An International Journal for Teachers (January 3, 2007). A regular contributor to EDSTAT-L (DR) mentioned the following interesting resource: Teaching Statistics - An International Journal for Teachers. Gerald Goodall, David Green, The Teaching Statistics Trust 2006. Accessed on 2007-1-3. www.rsscse.org.uk/ts/gtb/contents.html
Stats: What percentage of medical decisions are based on good evidence? (December 29, 2006). A correspondent on the evidence based health list noted a commonly quoted statistic that only 10% of all medical practices are based on solid evidence (e.g., randomized trials) and asked for any recent data either supporting or refuting this statistic. I shared several resources that I was aware of:
Stats: Evidence-based development of medical guidelines (December 13, 2006). An open source journal, Health Research Policy and Systems, has a series of articles on how to develop guidelines in a rigorous and evidence-base manner. The abstract of the first article explains the genesis of this review: In 2005 the World Health Organisation (WHO) asked its Advisory Committee on Health Research (ACHR) for advice on ways in which WHO can improve the use of research evidence in the development of recommendations, including guidelines and policies. The ACHR established the Subcommittee on the Use of Research Evidence (SURE) to collect background documentation and consult widely among WHO staff, international experts and end users of WHO recommendations to inform its advice to WHO. We have prepared a series of reviews of methods that are used in the development of guidelines as part of this background documentation. We describe here the background and methods of these reviews, which are being published in Health Research Policy and Systems together with this introduction.
Stats: Top ten studies in EBM, Part 4 (September 14, 2006). About a year ago, I wanted to give a talk on the ten studies that anyone who teaches EBM needs to know. These studies should be well known in the research community; actual research studies (as opposed to editorials); and illustrative of important issues in EBM. My previous writings on the topic were a bit rambling, so I am going to try to organize things a bit better.
Stats: Email discussion groups (September 13, 2006). An email discussion group is a collection of individuals with a common interest who supply their email address to a common site, typically called a listserver. When individuals in that group have questions or comments on a topic of interest, they send an email to the listserver and a copy of that message is sent to everyone in the group.
Stats: Bernadine Healy weighs in on EBM (September 11, 2006). An earlier weblog entry, Stats: Postmodern thought and evidence based medicine (September 7, 2006), discussed a harsh criticism of Evidence Based Medicine that was published in Deconstructing the evidence-based discourse in health sciences: truth, power and fascism. Dave Holmes, Stuart J. Murray, Amelie Perron, Genevieve Rail. International Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare 2006: 4(3); 180. A brief commentary by Bernadine Healy published in U.S. News and World Report, cites this research, and while not quite agreeing with the harsh language (Holmes et al repeatedly compare proponents of EBM with fascists), does argue that "By anointing only a small sliver of research as best evidence and discarding or devaluing physician judgment and more than 90 percent of the medical literature, patients are forced into a one-size-fits-all straitjacket."
Stats: Postmodern thought and evidence based medicine (September 7, 2006). A recently published article has been drawing a lot of attention on the Internet. It takes a post-modern look at Evidence Based Medicine and in the abstract they report that "the evidence-based movement in the health sciences is outrageously exclusionary and dangerously normative with regards to scientific knowledge. As such, we assert that the evidence-based movement in health sciences constitutes a good example of microfascism at play in the contemporary scientific arena."
Stats: Research on the web (June 27, 2006). I found this quote in WXPnews, an email newsletter covering developments with Microsoft Windows XP for the typical end user: Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly. - Roger Ebert as quoted in the June 27, 2006 issue of WXPnews, www.wxpnews.com/archives/wxpnews-233-20060627.htm.
Stats: Philosophy of teaching (June 20, 2006). The email discussion group, EDSTAT-L, has had an extended discussion of teaching philosophy. I do some teaching myself, and I must admit that I don't think nearly enough about my philosophy of teaching.
Stats: Putting a human face on Evidence Based Medicine (June 20, 2006). A correspondent (BD) on the Evidence Based Health email discussion group pointed out the following web site: www.uwec.edu/lgibbs/index.htm. The author of this website, Len Gibbs, is a prominent expert in Evidence Based Medicine. He was recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer.
Stats: Eighteenth Annual Applied Statistics in Agriculture Conference (May 4, 2006). Earlier this week, I attended the Statistics in Agriculture conference that is held every year at Kansas State University. I had the choice of Tampa, Flagstaff, Montreal, or Vienna (see Where to go, where to go), and I chose Manhattan, Kansas instead. Go figure. Several people noticed me taking notes during the talks and I explained that I was going to publish some summaries of what I learned on my web pages.
Stats: Placing the symbol X-bar in a document (April 17, 2006). Someone asked me how to place the symbol X-bar into a word processing document. This is tricky to do because there is nothing in the Symbol font that works and most word processing software allows for underlines but not overlines. I use a product called MathType, but it might be too expensive for someone who only needs an occasional symbol or formula here and there. For the more casual user, there are several solutions.
Stats: Three new koans (April 17, 2006). Over the weekend, I wrote three new koans: The Bowl of Wax Fruit, The Busy Tailor, and Some Useless Gifts
Stats: Statistical koan #4 (March 26, 2006). Student Leaf asked Master Stem, "I have heard some of my teachers say 'I accept the null hypothesis' and others say 'I fail to reject the alternative hypothesis.' Why do these words not mean the same thing?"
Stats: Statistical koan #3 (March 16, 2006). Student Leaf approached Master Stem with a question. "Master Stem. My statistical model requires an assumption of normality, but I have an outlier in the data. Should I not remove the outlier so I can satisfy this assumption?"
Stats: Best EBM articles in 2005 (March 6, 2006). One of the regular contributors to the Evidence Based Health email discussion group asked what we felt were the Best EBM methods papers in 2005. I'll report on the articles that people suggest. Here are a few that I like.
Stats: Statistical koan #2 (Feburary 28, 2006). I got some limited feedback from EDSTAT-L about using koans to illustrate difficult and subtle statistical concepts, and at least one person thought that this device would end up confusing people more than helping them. With that in mind, here is a second koan. Let me know if it confuses more than it helps.
Stats: Statistical koans (February 27, 2006). I've been thinking about using a literacy device known as a koan to illustrate important statistical issues. A koan is a story used in Buddhist teaching that involves a seemingly meaningless or contradictory statement. Careful contemplation of this statement leads you to a more fuller understanding of Buddhist teaching. Often these stories end with a student reaching a state of greater enlightenment, so might be related to the concept of experiencing an epiphany.
Stats: Seventeen years between research and practice (November 2, 2005). I attended an excellent talk by one of the nurses at CMH on the problems with implementing quality improvement initiatives in health care. She cited an interesting statistics, that it takes an average of 17 years for research findings to be implemented in clinical practice. I asked her for the source of this statistic, and she found several references to an article: Managing clinical knowledge for health care improvement. Balas EA, Boren SA. In: Yearbook of Medical Informatics 2000: Patient-Centered Systems. Stuttgart, Germany: Schattauer; 2000:65-70.
Stats: Science mentoring (September 12, 2005). I received an email notice through the Kansas/Western Missouri chapter of the American Statistical Association about "Meet the Science Mentor Day." This is a half day workshop in the Kansas City area that allows students working to talk to professional scientists to get advice on possible science fair projects.
Stats: What alternative medicine can teach us about evidence-based medicine (August 23, 2005). This is a rough outline of a seminar I will present in a couple of days. It incorporates material from another talk, Is the randomized trial the gold standard for research? The title of this talk seems to be backwards.
Stats: Overview of evidence-based-medicine (July 29, 2005). The Archives of Disease in Childhood has a series of articles on evidence-based Medicine.
Stats: Changes to STAT-L/sci.stat.consult (May 25, 2005). Many years ago, I volunteered to develop a frequently asked questions (FAQ) list for the email discussion group, STAT-L. This list is hosted at McGill University and run under the capable leadership of Michael Walsh.
Stats: MedStats discussion group (April 25, 2005). If you don't get enough email already, a new discussion group, MedStats, was created recently. MedStats is hosted on Google Groups. The main page for MedStats is groups.google.com/group/MedStats and details about the list appear at groups.google.com/group/MedStats/about.
Stats: MedStats discussion group (April 25, 2005). If you don't get enough email already, a new discussion group, MedStats, was created recently. MedStats is hosted on Google Groups. The main page for MedStats is groups-beta.google.com/group/MedStats and details about the list appear at groups-beta.google.com/group/MedStats/about.
Stats: More on the top ten studies in EBM (February 28, 2005). I may never get this paper done, but the effort is still worthwhile in that I am learning a lot. I rediscovered a wonderful web page developed by Ben Djulbegovic, Randomized trials that changed medical practice, which along with Non-randomized trials that changed medical practice lists research studies that have changed how we practice medicine.
Stats: Developing good practice guidelines (February 18, 2005). A physician here, Lloyd Olson, who has been aggressively promoting Evidence Based Medicine suggested the following interesting article on practice guidelines, Are guidelines following guidelines? The methodological quality of clinical practice guidelines in the peer-reviewed medical literature. Shaneyfelt TM, Mayo-Smith MF, Rothwangl J. Jama 1999: 281(20); 1900-5.
Stats: Report cards (February 16, 2005). The Minnesota Department of Health recently published a report, Minnesota hospitals' report on "never events" released. Robeznieks A, Published in Amercian Medical News on February 21, 2005. Accessed on 2005-02-16. www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2005/02/21/prsc0221.htm, that documenting 99 events occurring in Minnesota hospitals that should never occur. This included things like wrong-site surgery, pressure ulcers, and misuse of medical devices. Among these events, 20 resulted in a patient death. This is an example of the increasing demand that hospitals and other health care organizations produce "report cards" that tell the public how well or poorly they are doing.
Stats: Another top ten study in EBM (February 14, 2005). Here's another nomination for the top ten studies in EBM. One of the pitfalls of research evaluating diagnostic tests is spectrum bias, and this was noted as early as 1978 in Problems of spectrum and bias in evaluating the efficacy of diagnostic tests. Ransohoff DF, Feinstein AR. N Engl J Med 1978: 299(17); 926-30.
Stats: Best EBM methods or teaching papers in 2004 (February 3, 2005). Paul Glasziou compiled a list for the best EBM papers in 2004. These papers had to deal with either methods for EBM or teaching of EBM. Here is the list.
Stats: Ten research studies that anyone teaching EBM should be familiar with (January 17, 2005). When I get a chance, I want to write a paper with a title along the lines of "Ten research studies that anyone teaching EBM should be familiar with". These would be studies that are well known in the research community; actual research studies (as opposed to editorials); and illustrative of important issues in EBM. One of the studies would be: A close look at therapeutic touch. Rosa L, Rosa E, Sarner L, Barrett S. Jama 1998: 279(13); 1005-10.
Stats: Top six mistakes in teaching EBM (September 24, 2004). I attended a lunch roundtable session on the role of statisticians in teaching Evidence-Based practice to future clinicians. I didn't get a chance to write up a summary of this, but I wanted to share a handout that the roundtable leader, Renee Stolove, shared with the group.
Stats: International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (September 10, 2004). Donald Lollar presented a seminar: "The International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF)." The ICF is a framework for classifying health status that complements ICD codes.
Stats: Evidence Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (June 15, 2004). There's a new journal out with free full text on the web. It is Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine and is published by Oxford Journals online. I find that CAM makes for interesting teaching examples because students are willing to be extra skeptical for these studies and don't passively and uncritically accept the findings on CAM research.
Stats: Evidence Based lessons learned from Cardiology (March 18, 2004). There was a nice series of articles in the journal Circulation that appeared in 2002 with free full text online. These articles offer specific lessons about evidence-based medicine.
Stats: Statistical consulting (June 14, 2004). Most training programs in Statistics do a good job in emphasizing the various tools that you will need, but it is much harder to teach the nonstatistical aspects of statistical consulting.
Stats: Evidence Based Medicine and Ethics (February 20, 2004). The Journal of Medical Ethics has a series of articles about ethics and evidence based medicine. These are pre-prints of articles under review and you can prepare a response to these articles. I found the article "Ethical problems arising in evidencebased complementary and alternative medicine" Edzard Ernst, Michael H. Cohen, Julie Stone to be especially intriguing.
Stats: Educational Resources (February 3, 2004). Someone posed a question on the IRB Discussion forum wondering if there was a source of free materials "that we can email or distribute as hardcopy to our study coordinators and other research staff to help them keep up to date on issues relevant to human subjects research." There's a lot of good stuff on the web, I wrote back, but you have to live with uneven quality, partisan viewpoints, and there is no one to collate and synthesize the results.
Theme and closely related categories:
Readings in alternative medicine that serve as useful examples for evidence based medicine
Theme and closely related categories:
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This webpage was written by Steve Simon on 2007-06-05, edited by Steve Simon, and was last modified on 2008-07-14. This page needs minor revisions.