Department of Psychology
     116 Psychology Bldg
     Oklahoma State University
     Stillwater, OK 74078-3064

     e-mail: james.grice]att[okstate.edu.
     Office: (405)-744-6567
     Office Room #: 416 North Murray
     Labs: 321 & 323 North Murray

        
      Background & Current Research

I am a personality/quantitative psychologist by training with specific interests in multivariate statistical methods and personality assessment. I have published and presented a number of papers on factor scores (see link below) and have completed several major computer programs. The first, Idiogrid, is for administering, manipulating, and analyzing repertory grids and other forms of self-report data. The second, Observation Oriented Modeling (OOM), accompanies a book that has been published by Academic Press (Elsevier). OOM provides a compelling alternative to the Pearsonian-Fisherian variable-based statistics that have dominated psychology for over 70 years. The following is an overview of this new approach:

Recovering our Common Sense: Psychology as an Observation Oriented Science (Delivered at SWPA, Dallas, TX, April, 2010)

Since the early 1900s psychological research has been dominated by statistical methods that are overly abstract and often ill-suited for the types of questions most psychologists wish to ask. In this presentation Observation Oriented Modeling will be introduced as a radical alternative to these traditional methods of data analysis. Practically speaking, Observation Oriented Modeling challenges researchers to develop integrated models that explain patterns of observations rather than to estimate abstract population parameters. The focus of research is thus shifted away from aggregate statistics, such as means, variances, and correlations, and is instead directed toward assessing the accuracy of judgments based on the observations in hand. This shift brings the persons in a psychological study to the forefront of the analysis and conclusions, while completely eschewing such confusing concepts as Type I, Type II, Type III errors, statistical power, and the p-value. Philosophically, this new approach is more consistent with the common sense realism of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas than with the idealism of René Descartes; and the end result is an approach to data conceptualization and analysis that is demanding and rigorous, but also straightforward and intuitive.

Following the publication of OOM I hope to never conduct and publish another stand-alone t-test, ANOVA, multiple regression, structural equation model, between-persons factor analysis, etc. for the remainder of my academic career. The reasons for my departure from traditional experimental statistics can be found on the OOM website, and they are reasons offered by some of the brightest minds in psychology over the past 70 years. I only wish I were bright enough to have understood their arguments many years ago when I was younger! We psychologists have let our methods become our metaphysics which has prevented the accretion of any genuine scientific knowledge. The bottom line is that psychology must get beyond positivism, a philosophical view that has run its course but which has spread its roots deep into psychology by way of research methods and statistics. We need to re-orient ourselves to Nature through the moderate realism of the pagan and the saint (viz., Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas). 

Lastly, with regard to my place in the academy, I also have interests in philosophy of science, George Kelly's Personal Construct Psychology, C. G. Jung's theory of personality, the Roman Catholic intellectual and mystical traditions (Thomism and Spanish mysticism, respectively), and psychology of religion.

   Online Resources

• Observation Oriented Modeling. An analysis method that is transparent and actually makes sense!
• Idiogrid: Software for administering and scoring self-report, person-centered questionnaires/repertory grids.
• Tools for Computing and Evaluating Factor Scores  (this website is extremely dated) 
• Courses Taught at OSU:
• Psyc-3214 : Statistical Methods in Psychology
• Psyc-3003, 5620 : Observation Oriented Modeling
• Psyc-4353:  History of the Human Soul
• Psyc-4333 : Theories of Personality
• Psyc-4813 : Psychological Testing
• Psyc-5304 : Quantitative Methods I
• Psyc-5314 : Quantitative Methods II
• Psyc-6813 : Multivariate Statistics in Psychology

• Courses are now linked through OSU's Canvas provider.