Call for Manuscript Proposals at AMPPS

Special section: Using simulations to develop statistical intuitions

Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science (AMPPS) is pleased to announce a call for tutorial manuscripts focused on the use of simulations in developing statistical intuitions.

The use of simulations in psychological science and statistics is not new, but the advent of open-source tools for disseminating simulation code and for producing interactive web applications (e.g., Shiny Apps) has led to a rapid growth in the use of simulations to enhance statistical understanding. For many students and researchers, simulations provide an accessible way to better grasp statistical principles and to understand the consequences of analysis decisions; for example, they might allow users to vary statistical parameters in a given model or data-generating process and see the consequences of making different statistical assumptions or analytic choices.

In keeping with AMPPS‘s mission of helping researchers improve their research and statistical practices, the journal will publish a collection of tutorial papers that will be useful to researchers interested in gaining a better understanding of statistical principles and to students in and instructors of undergraduate and graduate statistics classes.

Each tutorial should help a relatively novice reader gain a better understanding of a statistical principle, practice, or skill through the use of simulations. Manuscripts should focus on core concepts that are relevant to the broad readership of the journal (psychological scientists from all subfields, using many types of data and employing a wide variety of statistical analysis). Each tutorial should include a brief introduction that motivates how and why the simulation approach is useful for understanding that concept and what insights users can gain by following the tutorial. The manuscript should walk readers through the process of using the code/tool in a step-by-step fashion. Ideally, the tutorial will work through multiple examples (ideally using different types of data from different content areas) to illustrate the usefulness and generality of the tutorial. We strongly encourage the use of open-source software and tools for all tutorials (e.g., R, Python, Shiny), and authors should make their well-commented code publicly available either in supplemental materials or at a permanent 3rd-party repository (e.g., osf.io or a shiny server). Please see the submission guidelines for details on the requirements for the Tutorial article type at AMPPS.

Interested authors should use this form to submit a proposal for a tutorial in the special section. The editors will review these proposals and will encourage submission based on fit to the call for proposals, fit with AMPPS’s overall mission of reaching a broad audience, and on the need to avoid duplication of content in the section or with other AMPPS submissions. In cases where multiple teams submit proposals for the same topic, we will aim to ensure diversity among the pool of authors in the issue. We do not have a fixed limit on the number of manuscripts for the special section.

The deadline for the submission of proposals is February 11, 2019 and the deadline for completed manuscripts will be May 31, 2019.

Note that AMPPS encourages submission of unsolicited tutorial manuscripts of many sorts (see the submission guidelines). This call is for Tutorials specifically focused on the use of simulations for enhanced understanding and for pedagogy.

If you have any questions about this call for proposed tutorials, please email Daniel Simons at ampps.editor@gmail.com.