WEBVTT Kind: captions; language: en-us NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:00:02.300 --> 00:00:09.800 This is the first part of a presentation to prepare you for this SPED4010 course, in research, 00:00:09.800 --> 00:00:18.200 methods in particular, this part concerns statistics and I am going to first try to explain to you 00:00:18.200 --> 00:00:25.400 Why you as a master student in Special Needs education, should learn statistics. Let us start with 00:00:25.400 --> 00:00:32.299 some examples in the first example. Imagine a boy going to second grade who is referred for 00:00:32.299 --> 00:00:32.700 evaluation. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:00:32.700 --> 00:00:40.700 Due to poor performance at school and disruptive behavior. So you find out that this boy 00:00:40.700 --> 00:00:48.600 has already been assessed with a couple of tests and there is a report on a full scale IQ of 90 and 00:00:48.600 --> 00:00:56.000 a vocabulary standard score of 69. What does this mean? What should you do? As a special needs 00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:02.600 education professional. The answer depends on understanding what these numbers mean. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:01:02.900 --> 00:01:10.500 The second example, imagine that you read in the news, that a team of researchers has announced a 00:01:10.500 --> 00:01:17.800 new screening tool to identify children, with dyslexia supposedly children of all ages, can take a 00:01:17.800 --> 00:01:25.000 20-minute test online and receive a recommendation that is supposed to be related to, whether they 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:31.800 should be followed up with more extensive evaluation, or do not need that. So you read about this 00:01:31.800 --> 00:01:32.699 tool and you NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 74% (MEDIUM) 00:01:32.699 --> 00:01:39.800 see that it reports it 85 percent sensitivity and 82 percent specificity for the first grades of 00:01:39.800 --> 00:01:41.750 elementary school. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:01:41.750 --> 00:01:48.400 What should you do? Is this something that's worth looking into? Is this something that you should 00:01:48.400 --> 00:01:55.600 be recommending to your school district? Is what are you going to do about it? The answer to this 00:01:55.600 --> 00:02:01.400 depends on understanding, what these numbers mean and how they are derived. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (HØY) 00:02:01.400 --> 00:02:08.699 The third example, imagine that you're reading an advertisement in your professional information 00:02:08.699 --> 00:02:14.700 sheet about a company who has devised a new Intervention program NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:02:14.700 --> 00:02:22.300 for children in elementary school, who have great difficulty with the math curriculum. So there is 00:02:22.300 --> 00:02:28.300 this new intervention and the company claims a very high success rate and indeed point to a research 00:02:28.300 --> 00:02:35.000 paper, where they have studied this with the sample of 20 children and they claim that the 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:42.300 intervention, the children, who receive the intervention improved and the improved by possibly 00:02:42.300 --> 00:02:44.300 impressive 15%. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:02:44.300 --> 00:02:53.150 on a math test and they give this specific information at T value of 2.04 and the p-value of .07. 00:02:53.150 --> 00:02:59.300 What are you supposed to do with this information? Is this a program, you should be interested in? 00:02:59.300 --> 00:03:05.200 Do you just go out and buy it. Do you want to learn more about it? The answer to this question, 00:03:05.200 --> 00:03:12.600 depends on understanding what this study really shows and how it should be interpreted. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:23.200 As a fourth example, let's say you have your own idea from your own practice and experience about 00:03:23.200 --> 00:03:29.500 how to help children with developmental disorders, communicate better. So, we're talking about 00:03:29.500 --> 00:03:36.000 children with very low communication skills, and you have some ideas from practice. So you develop 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:42.300 your own program, you tried out informally on 20 children that you work with, or that you supervise 00:03:42.300 --> 00:03:44.100 the work on. And it turns, NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:03:44.100 --> 00:03:48.050 out that 13 of the children actually improve. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:03:48.050 --> 00:03:55.300 apparently from your intervention. So 13 improved 7 don't improve. That sounds like a 00:03:55.300 --> 00:04:04.649 substantial majority. So is this a good idea? Should you be using more of your time? More resources? 00:04:04.649 --> 00:04:11.800 Is this a good idea for using the children's time? Working on this intervention? Should you continue 00:04:11.800 --> 00:04:18.200 to develop and use it? Should you recommend it to others? The answer to this question, depends on NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:04:18.200 --> 00:04:25.800 understanding the importance of getting 13 out of 20 to improve. So these are all quantitative 00:04:25.800 --> 00:04:32.900 questions and indeed they are too large extent, statistics questions and the answers to these 00:04:32.900 --> 00:04:39.750 questions that are from your field. Depend on your understanding of Statistics in particular and on 00:04:39.750 --> 00:04:46.100 research methods more general. Because the correct answers to these questions also depends on 00:04:46.100 --> 00:04:48.150 understanding how the studies were set up NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:04:48.150 --> 00:04:56.300 and what they could possibly demonstrate. So starting at the little more general level. Why do 00:04:56.300 --> 00:05:01.900 you need to know about research methods? If you're not going to be researcher, the answer is you 00:05:01.900 --> 00:05:08.800 need this in order to be responsible and competent, special needs education professional. Because 00:05:08.800 --> 00:05:14.750 you will have to be able to distinguish different kinds of knowledge. And you will have to be able 00:05:14.750 --> 00:05:18.250 to know when to be confident about something and know when NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:05:18.250 --> 00:05:25.800 you need to be less confident so that you can evaluate the research behind assessments and 00:05:25.800 --> 00:05:31.000 interventions in and this is not something that we can teach you now because new Assessments in new 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:36.700 interventions on, going to come out and you need to be able to evaluate these yourself as they 00:05:36.700 --> 00:05:39.400 appear or is they are improved. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:05:39.400 --> 00:05:48.250 Also, in order to be able to decide what to use, and how to interpret it, and this concerns both 00:05:48.250 --> 00:05:57.300 individual assessments and individual interventions, as well as policy matters in education. So, if 00:05:57.300 --> 00:06:03.800 your job is to work with individuals, you will need research methods and statistics to decide what 00:06:03.800 --> 00:06:06.450 to do with your own individuals. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:06:06.450 --> 00:06:12.900 But having a master's in Special Needs education also gives you other possibilities to work in 00:06:12.900 --> 00:06:18.600 sectors that have to do with planning and policy and assessment. And there you will need to have a 00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:24.200 different kind of overview and understanding that will let you contributed decisions about more 00:06:24.200 --> 00:06:29.550 general approaches to assessment intervention in Special Needs education. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:06:29.550 --> 00:06:39.200 In this respect, I recommend that you watch a YouTube video. It is actually a somewhat long talk of 00:06:39.200 --> 00:06:48.100 a bit more than an hour. A presentation regarding an proposed, intervention for autistic children to 00:06:48.100 --> 00:06:54.000 learn to communicate which is an old one has been well researched and many lessons have been learned 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:55.300 from it. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:06:55.300 --> 00:07:02.100 And there you will see how important it is both to the professionals as well as do the individuals 00:07:02.100 --> 00:07:08.750 and their families to have a good grasp of what research methods and statistics, how they help 00:07:08.750 --> 00:07:17.300 understand and interpret data. And actually save us, not only from wasting our time, but also from 00:07:17.300 --> 00:07:24.850 misleading and actually making people's lives worse when using interventions that are NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:07:24.850 --> 00:07:33.400 not really supported by the evidence. So this is a very instructive talk and I recommend that you 00:07:33.400 --> 00:07:36.600 all watch it and reflect on it. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:07:37.900 --> 00:07:48.400 Now, why do we teach methods in plural and not just one? This is a very important question and I hope 00:07:48.400 --> 00:07:55.300 that by the end of the course, you will have realized that there are different kinds of questions in 00:07:55.300 --> 00:08:03.000 terms of the kinds of knowledge that we want to find out. The kind of knowledge that we want to 00:08:03.000 --> 00:08:08.000 obtain. And they're also different ways to obtain knowledge. And this is NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:14.600 associated with how confident we are in the knowledge obtained and how general the knowledge is. So 00:08:14.600 --> 00:08:22.300 how confidently we can use this knowledge to reason about other cases and how we can apply this 00:08:22.300 --> 00:08:28.750 knowledge and where we can apply it. When is it justified to use this knowledge? And what it is not NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:08:28.750 --> 00:08:34.799 So, different methods are associated with different kinds of all of these and it's very important to 00:08:34.799 --> 00:08:42.100 be clear about. For example, when you are learning about an opinion, versus when you're learning 00:08:42.100 --> 00:08:44.400 about a supposed fact. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 77% (HØY) 00:08:44.400 --> 00:08:49.100 Opinions and fact are very different things. They're both important for different reasons and 00:08:49.100 --> 00:08:56.400 different cases. But when it comes to facts, it's also very important to know how well stated fact, 00:08:56.400 --> 00:09:03.000 is actually supported by evidence. This becomes very important because the fact that will 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:08.700 support, it should be a stronger basis for decisions, but something that's claimed to be a fact but 00:09:08.700 --> 00:09:14.050 isn't actually very strongly supported should probably not be treated as a NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:09:14.050 --> 00:09:19.300 solid basis for making decisions that affect people's lives. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:09:19.800 --> 00:09:28.000 Now, how is the district's factoring in all of this? Why do you need to learn statistics? If you're 00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:33.300 not going to be running your own studies? Well, first of all, some of you are going to be running 00:09:33.300 --> 00:09:40.300 your own studies because you're going to do a master theses which is a research thesis, and many 00:09:40.300 --> 00:09:47.200 of you will choose to do quantitative methods in your theses. Others will choose to do qualitative 00:09:47.200 --> 00:09:48.250 methods. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:09:48.250 --> 00:09:56.700 It may seem to some of you at this point that qualitative methods are easier. This is not the case. 00:09:56.700 --> 00:10:03.700 This is wrong, qualitative methods may seem easier when you don't really understand them. And when 00:10:03.700 --> 00:10:09.300 you think that qualitative methods is just making stuff up and talking about it, and it seems that 00:10:09.300 --> 00:10:14.200 people who are untrained in methods. Sometimes have this misconception. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:10:14.200 --> 00:10:22.450 Actually all methods are very systematic ways of obtaining knowledge interpreting knowledge and 00:10:22.450 --> 00:10:28.550 understanding the limitations of the obtained knowledge. This is true for all kinds of systematic 00:10:28.550 --> 00:10:39.800 and organized collection and doing a good document analysis or a good interview study is actually as 00:10:39.800 --> 00:10:44.350 hard as doing any good experimental or other NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:10:44.350 --> 00:10:48.500 data analysis. Qualitative data analysis. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:10:48.800 --> 00:10:54.600 Doing an interview is not sitting down with a bunch of friends and talking about stuff and just 00:10:54.600 --> 00:11:03.600 writing it up, that is not research methods. Doing a good quantitative research study requires 00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:10.700 you to know about how to design, how to carry out, how to collect the data, how to process the data, 00:11:10.700 --> 00:11:16.800 how to analyze, and how to interpret the findings from the data. So, that's a reason to learn 00:11:16.800 --> 00:11:20.300 statistics fro many of you. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:11:20.800 --> 00:11:28.400 A second reason, which is very important and is important to every one of you. In order to be 00:11:28.400 --> 00:11:37.800 able to understand educational research in particular, special needs research. So not everything is 00:11:37.800 --> 00:11:44.800 known about special needs education. In fact, very little is factually known with confidence at this 00:11:44.800 --> 00:11:49.349 point. New ideas will come out, new studies NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:11:49.349 --> 00:11:56.849 will be conducted, new conclusions will be drawn new assessments. New interventions will be proposed 00:11:56.849 --> 00:12:03.100 for the domain that you will be working in. So there will be new research reported and we are not 00:12:03.100 --> 00:12:09.900 going to be around to interpret this for you as you are doing your job. It will be part of your job 00:12:09.900 --> 00:12:16.400 to be able to understand what the new findings are and how they may affect your practice. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:12:16.500 --> 00:12:21.550 the next reason for learning statistics is, NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:12:21.550 --> 00:12:27.300 to be able to interpret and report assessment results. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:12:27.300 --> 00:12:35.400 Pretty much all assessment tests are based on statistics. This may not make much sense right now 00:12:35.400 --> 00:12:44.500 because you haven't studied test. But the truth is that test our statistical tools. So in order to 00:12:44.500 --> 00:12:52.300 be able to understand what a test score means, and what you should do about it, you really need to 00:12:52.300 --> 00:12:57.650 understand the statistics that goes into creating the test at least, at a basic level. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:12:57.650 --> 00:13:04.900 so that you can understand what this course actually say and what they do not say NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:13:05.100 --> 00:13:13.600 And finally, you need to learn statistics in order to be a responsible, special needs education 00:13:13.600 --> 00:13:21.000 professional in this sense of giving responsible and justified, answers to practical questions of 00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:24.300 assessment and intervention in your field. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:13:24.300 --> 00:13:32.700 There is no way, you will be able to run these evaluations, and give justified answers without 00:13:32.700 --> 00:13:39.900 understanding how assessments and interventions are statistically presented, statistically 00:13:39.900 --> 00:13:47.100 evaluated. And finally, there may be personal reasons that you will appreciate. Once you have 00:13:47.100 --> 00:13:54.800 acquired the tools of statistics. For example, understanding statistics will help you evaluate NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:13:54.800 --> 00:14:04.200 reports in the news and knowing what seems trustworthy and what doesn't will enable you to 00:14:04.200 --> 00:14:11.400 make some decisions. Some more informed decisions. For example, lifestyle dietary medical decisions 00:14:11.400 --> 00:14:19.349 because you will be able to understand the findings that underlie advertisements proposals 00:14:19.349 --> 00:14:24.750 announcements or news, you will be able to look up the studies and see what they actually found. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:14:24.750 --> 00:14:33.600 and know how much you can trust these findings and overall to better understand information 00:14:33.600 --> 00:14:40.500 that is presented to you that is dependent on quantitative research, which is most of it. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:14:40.700 --> 00:14:47.750 So, some of you may object that you really don't feel comfortable with numbers. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:14:47.750 --> 00:14:55.700 Before we go into the detailed answer to this. I have to say that if you really are very 00:14:55.700 --> 00:15:01.950 uncomfortable with numbers. You should probably find something else to do with your life because 00:15:01.950 --> 00:15:09.400 being in Special Needs education and especially as a master's level graduate requires you to be 00:15:09.400 --> 00:15:11.350 responsibly using numbers. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:15:11.350 --> 00:15:19.100 That is not only because you may be asked to help children with math difficulties. And in that case, 00:15:19.100 --> 00:15:25.300 you should really understand what you will be trying to explain but also because of all the reasons 00:15:25.300 --> 00:15:30.900 I gave you before because you need to be able to understand assessment scores. You need to be able 00:15:30.900 --> 00:15:38.500 to understand intervention findings. You need to be able to evaluate the confidence that you can put 00:15:38.500 --> 00:15:41.150 into various announcements and NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:15:41.150 --> 00:15:49.100 recommendations. So if you really can't deal with numbers, do something else. But having said that there's not 00:15:49.100 --> 00:15:55.300 that much but you need to do here. So we're not going to do math. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:15:55.300 --> 00:16:03.100 We're really only going to be using Elementary School knowledge. This is not an exaggeration. You 00:16:03.100 --> 00:16:11.400 can add subtract multiply and divide numbers, and that's it. We don't need any fancy math. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:16:11.400 --> 00:16:22.400 So the level of math that you're going to need in statistics, is the same or maybe even less than 00:16:22.400 --> 00:16:27.600 the math you need for basic competence in Special Needs education. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:16:28.400 --> 00:16:36.100 It is the mathematicians who do the math in the computers, who run the actual calculations, so you 00:16:36.100 --> 00:16:42.700 will not really need to do anything demanding in these respects. Nothing that you wouldn't be 00:16:42.700 --> 00:16:47.450 expected to do as an elementary school graduate. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:16:47.450 --> 00:16:54.700 Your job will be to be able to think critically about evidence. To think, about the uncertainty, and 00:16:54.700 --> 00:16:59.400 the confidence. And to do that in an applied way in your field. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:17:00.600 --> 00:17:08.800 And that will enable you to see the world from a quantitative point of view, not necessarily as an 00:17:08.800 --> 00:17:15.099 alternative. So you don't have to change a worldview. But this is an additional worldview that will 00:17:15.099 --> 00:17:23.400 be able to give you access to a much richer information basis. So you will be able to process more 00:17:23.400 --> 00:17:30.800 information and that can really change your life. So you will acquire competence in a new domain. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:17:30.800 --> 00:17:36.500 You will develop skills, you need in your field. You will be able to see things from a richer 00:17:36.500 --> 00:17:44.300 perspective. You will be able to appreciate the uncertainty that is everywhere without being 00:17:44.300 --> 00:17:52.000 paralyzed by it. Understand that things differing doesn't mean that you cannot make confident and 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:59.000 justify choices. So, you will be able to make Justified use of variable information, be able to make 00:17:59.000 --> 00:18:01.000 informed responsible. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (HØY) 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:09.150 decision. That will make you feel more confident that you chose the right thing. And in general NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:18:09.150 --> 00:18:16.300 learning statistics will be able to help you figure out what you can trust more and what you can be 00:18:16.300 --> 00:18:23.500 more confident about. So, these are all the reasons that you should learn statistics.