It’s the end of the year and also my birthday month, a time for reflection on areas of my life – my personal life, of course, but also my consulting and teaching life. This note is about the latter. Over the past few days, I’ve been looking through the list of students and faculty I’ve […]
My end-of-year reflections Read More »
Google Scholar Labs: A New Era of Academic Search? I’ve always had a soft spot for Google Scholar. Some academics dismiss it for its messy metadata or occasional ghost citations, but when used properly — especially with Advanced Search and Scholar Metrics — it remains one of the most powerful free tools available. And
🎁“To researchers. From: G.” Read More »
Absence of Evidence Is Not Evidence of Absence Carl Sagan popularised this phrase, and it applies beautifully to dissertation statistics. A common issue I see in students’ dissertations is this: They run a statistical test, get a non-significant result… and then bend over backwards to explain their unexpected, disappointing finding. What they often don’t
A Lesson in Critical Thinking Skills for Researchers, Students, and Other Curious Minds Have you ever been the party pooper who interrupts a casual conversation with a skeptical, “But what’s the sample size?” or “Did they actually measure happiness, though?” If so, welcome to the club! You’re officially one of those wonderfully annoying critical thinkers
The World Happiness Report Read More »
Some students avoid statistics. Others dive in headfirst. One student I met this week did the latter—spending hundreds of hours teaching himself statistical analysis from scratch using textbooks, Google, and R Studio. And no, he did not use AI. By the time he came to me to check his results, he had done a solid
The Scenario A student recently brought me their dissertation proposal for feedback. They had observed a phenomenon, discussed it with their professor, who pointed them to two or three references and worked on this limited basis. In fairness, the student acknowledged they still had work to do on the literature, but their proposal
Lessons from My Students: The Proposal Without a Literature Review Read More »
The Scenario A student recently approached me to review their dissertation proposal, which had been rejected by their school’s proposal committee. I had not been involved in the proposal. One of the key issues was that the student had confused the concepts of mediation and moderation, which led to flaws in the argument, hypotheses, statistical
Lessons from My Students: Mediation versus Moderation Read More »
The Scenario A student recently told me they felt “stuck” on their dissertation proposal, even skipping their end-of-year holiday to make progress. A stuck proposal or dissertation often happens because the problem isn’t clear or the research process feels overwhelming. The Issue A stuck or unsuccessful proposal or dissertation typically signals a lack of clarity
Lessons from My Students: Getting Unstuck – Four Essential Questions to Move Forward Read More »
The Scenario A master’s student recently sent me their survey questionnaire for review. As I’ve seen in many such cases, there were several substantial issues that, if uncorrected, would compromise the quality of the data collected—and, in turn, the analysis, results, and conclusions. Fortunately, the survey had just begun, so there was still time
Lessons from My Students: Crafting a Flawless Questionnaire Read More »
The Scenario A student’s dissertation I recently reviewed aimed to predict a rare medical disease using data from patient records. The student had not done an upfront power analysis to determine the sample size needed. Given the infrequent occurrence of the event, a large sample was necessary to detect meaningful effects, but, unfortunately, collecting such
Lessons from My Students: Size Matters – Getting Sample Size Right Read More »