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Unit 2: Empirical Science & Statistics

This unit covers:

  • basics of the scientific method
  • statistical tools for educational research

Learning outcomes

  1. Be able to competently use the terminology of empirical science, such as theory, hypothesis, experiment, null hypothesis.
  2. Be able to understand, explain, and evaluate empirical science research in the domain of education research.
  3. Be able to qualitatively explain the purpose and use of statistical hypothesis tests.

Pre-session task

Watch the Veritasium video below on the Replication Crisis of Science and answer these guiding questions on on Slido:

  1. What is (in your words) the meaning of the p-value?
  2. Name a suggestion to counter the “reproducibility crisis” in empirical science.

Material

  • slides

  • Video (2022-10-14): The Scientific Method, hypothesis testing, pitfalls

Further resources

  • Crash Course Statistics
    accessible YouTube series giving some more details and lots of examples of how to use statistical methods

Unit 1  ⋅  Syllabus  ⋅  Unit 3