Step To It Science Superstitions (I Don’t Cheerlead In These Shoes)

My Science is Hotter than Dr. Isis’s Naughty Monkeys Because…

Yeah, monkeys can be bad. But not as bad-ass as my tango shoes.

You’re saying you do science in those shoes?

Science doesn’t require one to dress up pretty to get the job done. I could do a variety of things in these shoes, but they’re best suited and designed for a ballroom dance floor (well, more accurately I can dance this and this in those shoes. I am not, however, an Argentinian tango dancer).

But you’re doing an M.Ed. What sort of science do you do in that?

You want the stats or you want the psychology of superstitions and paranormal belief? I have both.

Let’s start with the stats.

Then we’re talking Rasch analysis.

Never heard of it.

Don’t worry, neither had Dr Karl when I mentioned my work to him last week after I conducted an interview for the Skeptic Zone podcast (you can hear that this Friday) – and he’s got a few qualifications, as you might know…

Although compatible with traditional test theory, Rasch analysis checks on the internal consistency of items and the operation of of the items across different groups. In educational measurement, they’re often used in the field of psychometrics, when ascertaining the abilities, attitudes, and personality traits of subjects. Using these models can help produce diagnostic information regarding how well the criterion is met, particularly just how good the instrument is measuring the trait (in this case, paranormal beliefs).

The advantages of a Rasch model analysis is that it is based on an explicit model requiring invariance, which results in integer scoring of the items. Rasch scaling, therefore, provides evidence as to whether there is a single underlying tendency (in the case of my studies, the tendency to believe in the paranormal), or whether there are ‘clusters’ of beliefs that influence each other.

Why are you holding a notepad with a picture on it? Is this like ‘Indexed‘ or something?

That’s showing you an example of a Guttman pattern and an example of items demonstrating a relationship between total score on a test and person location estimate. In my studies, it’s the level of belief and what might be described as a gradient of ’significantly more difficult to believe paranormal beliefs’ or possibly just various paranormal beliefs. It works when a subject’s responses are listed according to item difficulty, from lowest to highest (imagine a good science test, where you have questions that are easy and then get harder and harder on a gradient. I’ve experienced these in tests administered to students when I was a high school teacher and they’re a part of national testing on literacy, numeracy, et al. That was one of the units I did for my first Masters of Education degree, which looked at curriculum and testing. So, I have some understanding-of-stats background, along with a Grad Dip unit in Psychology that I was doing part time.).

When the responses are listed according to item difficulty – it’s fairly likely going to get one of these patterns on your scale. Note that although it’s most probable given the structure of the Rasch model, that you’ll get this tendency; it’s not strictly adhered to as there are many possible patterns. It also allows me to figure out how good this scale is in measuring beliefs. It’ll help check the internal consistency of items and the operation of items across different groups. The advantages of Rasch model analysis is that it is based upon an explicit model requiring invariance, which results in integer scoring of the items.

So, what’s that to do with belief and superstitions then?

The Rasch model allows for subgroups within the newly created paranormal scale that Dr Martin Bridgstock and I created, drawing upon the demographic data we got from 1243 adults in the Queensland Social Service survey (QSS survey). I’m investigating as to whether the instrument measures the same traits, regardless of background variables. Analysis will determine the differential item functioning for specific items related to the background variables.

Previous paranormal scales that have used Rasch modelling are limited; I found some studies on the Australian Sheep-Goat scales that demonstrated some biases in semantic distortions and there is a two-factor Rasch version of the Revised Paranormal Scale to investigate the relationship between individually-orientated New Age Philosophy beliefs and socially-orientated paranormal beliefs and their relationship to schizotypal personality factors. You could use a Rasch scalable paranormal survey on a wide variety of people, to ascertain the gradient of belief. Whether mine does that is the topic of my M.Ed; the overall results, however, are still useful in several different ways (for example, we tested the scales of Wiseman and Watt on luck within our survey).

In fact, back to the shoes, you could probably even use Rasch modelling to demonstrate what elements of dance competency and level of confidence dancers have in order to study for a Gold Star Modern Ballroom medal; perhaps starting by ascertaining what steps and moves are commonly demonstrated to reach that standard and the views of the dancers on their abilities. There’s been studies into what level of competency teachers have in using computer software and if there’s a correlation between their skills and their perspectives about their skills (very good correlation, from the research I’ve seen). At the moment, I’m helping gather research on engagement in schools and the teacher’s perspective of the students’ abilities.

So, where else could you use it?

Well, Law and Magic blog reported this bit of superstition recently – we could find out to what extent the fans adopt the notion of ‘curses’, by assessing different levels of belief in luck, misfortune, superstition and even how convinced they are of a doomed team due to this. What other factors might influence their views?

Newcastle United fans can take heart–there’s a reason their favorite team is having problems. It’s cursed. At least that what paranormal and “curses” expert Trevor Brown told the Sun newspaper. Does that mean that management can cut back on raises?

What about the ‘psychology of superstitions and paranormal belief’ part?

You’ll have to read my earlier posts – there’s a whole lot of research in my blogposts that you can find and even a presentation I did at Adelaide (prior to the results of the survey we did coming in – which was a pity! I’m sure there’ll be more in 2009!)

So why are you studying an online unit in Parapsychology then? Aren’t they ‘The Enemy’??

What you might not know is that the several of the papers that I cited which use Rasch modelling when measuring paranormal beliefs were written by Parapsychologists. Just because they are researchers in that field, doesn’t mean we can’t work with them (e.g.: Wiseman and Watt) – nor does it prevent us from being inspired by (or discourage us from improving upon) studies which might contribute to both Parapsychology and Psychology in general. Rather like the research I’m doing – there’s a gradient between the ’sheep’ and the ‘goats’ and I want to be in-between. Yes, some things are clearly wrong, as demonstrated in the blog post about Quantum Physics. I do, however, find elements very useful and think others can find them useful too.

So why don’t you ‘cheerlead’ in those shoes?

I dance in those shoes, that’s what they’re for. For science, I do the research; I spend time talking to and studying with teachers; I committed myself for several years in order to better understand the theories and do the practical. I don’t think it’s right to put myself up as an authority in superstitions, the relationship they have to gender, skepticism or belief unless I do much, much more than just Google a few facts and stand in some nice shoes for a photograph.

It deserves more than that – it’s not about how ‘hawt’ I am; nor should that be an excuse for someone skimping on or misrepresenting research. I hope people know and respect the difference, no matter what shoes I wear. Support and encouragement is a great thing and people having realistic faith in you and expecting high standards is very important – but can’t be the only thing you’re using if you say it’s ‘your job’ or if you’re presenting at a podium. You have to bring something to the table, for yourself and others.

For example, there’s some great posts I’ve read on skepticism on SkepticBlog. There’s ones by Yau-Man Chan on ‘Skepticism — A Cultural Perspective’ that I’ve really enjoyed and although he talks about his rich personal experience with Chinese superstitions, I would rather draw upon examples of such wonderful anecdotes to contribute to the field formally – as I’ve begun to do here in this post, ‘Women and Superstitions – Part Four’.

This one by another skeptic, however, features quite a lot of confusion on his part as to what superstition actually means – Mark Edward writes:

‘I would like to hear about and investigate those unsubstantiated knee-jerk reflex-based behaviors that reflect what’s going on in today’s mixed up world… like the whole “lather rinse and repeat” instructions on shampoo bottles – Why? What’s the superstition behind that or is there one? Or was it just a maketing decision to sell more shampoo? I expect it was the latter, but you get my drift.‘

Now, I’ve written about the difficulty of defining ’superstition’ before. But in this case, Mark Edward isn’t discriminating between marketing and consumer-related behaviors and superstition. ‘Lather, Rinse, Repeat‘ encourages you to use more shampoo, thus making you have to buy more shampoo, as well presenting you with ‘how to wash’. We follow instructions on the bottle due to the authority we ascribe to the advertising, perhaps. If he was really talking about superstition, rather than the way science is communicated and understood regarding popular products we use… then perhaps he might have had a different sort of radio show proposal? I would suggest they read ‘Exploring the Antecedents and Consumer Behavior Consequences of the Trait of Superstion‘ by Mowen and Carlson (2003) instead.

What shoes are you wearing now?

Socks, actually – I’m on the couch. I’m about comfort first. You wear what you like, but when it comes to the crunch, it’s about getting the job done. Like this blog post, is now done. That’s kind of hot, I guess…

Tagged as: All About Me, Chinese superstitions, consumer, consumerism, dissertation, gender, issues, Rasch, Science, Scientiae, Skepticblog, statistics, superstition, women, women and woo