For someone like who feels a little inadequate analyzing things like experimental design / statistical analysis, I still largely agree with this.
My shallow experience with psychology papers is that abstracts still often try to be grander than what the paper’s actually about, and looking into exactly what they did is important. Some obvious things like looking at methodology (e.g. “How did they attempt to measure the thing they claim to have measured?”) and sample sizes (“Was this done with 16 people or 1600?”) can still give you a better idea.
EX: I recall reading a study about budding altruism/charitability in young children that felt very contrived, involving a story around magic boxes, marshallows, and a teddy bear. In this case, I might be skeptical that the results they tried to generalize from were actually there.
For someone like who feels a little inadequate analyzing things like experimental design / statistical analysis, I still largely agree with this.
My shallow experience with psychology papers is that abstracts still often try to be grander than what the paper’s actually about, and looking into exactly what they did is important. Some obvious things like looking at methodology (e.g. “How did they attempt to measure the thing they claim to have measured?”) and sample sizes (“Was this done with 16 people or 1600?”) can still give you a better idea.
EX: I recall reading a study about budding altruism/charitability in young children that felt very contrived, involving a story around magic boxes, marshallows, and a teddy bear. In this case, I might be skeptical that the results they tried to generalize from were actually there.