Carlisle Rainey 👨‍💻📊📚
@carlislerainey.bsky.social
2.7K followers 600 following 460 posts
political scientist at FSU; experimental design, inference (frequentist and Bayesian), metascience Web: https://www.carlislerainey.com Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=otXLf3
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carlislerainey.bsky.social
Would you like more than one? I don’t mind.
Reposted by Carlisle Rainey 👨‍💻📊📚
jhkirkland1.bsky.social
This paper (and its working versions before it) have probably done more to reorient my thinking about design than anything else I've read. Just really critical work for political science to think about in any type of hypothesis testing environment. Well done to this team.
vincentab.bsky.social
This is a paper I really care about. I feel the core message is very important for social scientists in general, and political scientists in particular.

"Quantitative Research in Political Science is Greatly Underpowered."

(with A+ co-authors)
Reposted by Carlisle Rainey 👨‍💻📊📚
carlislerainey.bsky.social
I'm chairing methods this year. I'm looking forward to putting together some great panels. Submit your papers!

Deadline is Sept. 15!
spsanews.bsky.social
Didn't get your proposal in on time? No problem! We've extended our deadline for submissions to September 15. Submit here: convention2.allacademic.com/one/spsa/sps...
Southern Political Science Association 2026
convention2.allacademic.com
carlislerainey.bsky.social
I'm chairing methods this year. I'm looking forward to putting together some great panels. Submit your papers!

Deadline is Sept. 15!
spsanews.bsky.social
Didn't get your proposal in on time? No problem! We've extended our deadline for submissions to September 15. Submit here: convention2.allacademic.com/one/spsa/sps...
Southern Political Science Association 2026
convention2.allacademic.com
carlislerainey.bsky.social
Here's the idea.

Someone pops into your office and says "Hey, can you tell me about X?" You say sure--you give a 10 minute pitch. You describe the motivation, basic idea, and suggested resources.

I want to write these short pitches down. Here's a first one on power.
Reposted by Carlisle Rainey 👨‍💻📊📚
maxkagan.bsky.social
Excellent reference for those, like me, who can always benefit from a refresher on statistical power
Reposted by Carlisle Rainey 👨‍💻📊📚
carlislerainey.bsky.social
New Post: "For Your Syllabus: Statistical Power"

Add content on statistical power to your social science courses.

Not just to methods courses.

For substantive courses, Bloom's MDE (i.e., 80% power to detect 2.5*SE) is easy to teach and really helpful!

www.carlislerainey.com/blog/2025-08...
For Your Syllabus: Statistical Power – Carlisle Rainey
Five papers you can assign when teaching about statistical power: power analysis, minimum detectable effects, sample size planning, and design diagnosis.
www.carlislerainey.com
carlislerainey.bsky.social
New Post: "For Your Syllabus: Statistical Power"

Add content on statistical power to your social science courses.

Not just to methods courses.

For substantive courses, Bloom's MDE (i.e., 80% power to detect 2.5*SE) is easy to teach and really helpful!

www.carlislerainey.com/blog/2025-08...
For Your Syllabus: Statistical Power – Carlisle Rainey
Five papers you can assign when teaching about statistical power: power analysis, minimum detectable effects, sample size planning, and design diagnosis.
www.carlislerainey.com
carlislerainey.bsky.social
‼️Cool new paper‼️

Finds that journal data policies in psychology boost sharing statements to ~100%, but only about half of datasets are complete, understandable, reusable.

Open: open.lnu.se/index.php/me...
Reposted by Carlisle Rainey 👨‍💻📊📚
cdsamii.bsky.social
An old boss once told me “each sentence should carry one idea and one idea only.” Good, Strunk and White-esque advice.
carlislerainey.bsky.social
Love this. You clearly describe how much writing is a *struggle* relative to the often-used description “write it up.”
carlislerainey.bsky.social
What’s the single best piece of feedback you’ve ever received on your writing—something that stuck with you and shaped how you write future papers?
carlislerainey.bsky.social
Observations:
- A surprising amount of good ideas emerge from the small groups. That’s where the magic happens.
- Students who tend to avoid talking to the whole class seem to share more freely after building confidence in the small groups.
carlislerainey.bsky.social
I’d say pose a question to the class, ask students to brainstorm as individuals for 1 minute, discuss in groups of 3 for 3-5 minutes, and then discuss as a whole class.
carlislerainey.bsky.social
Let's talk about teaching.

Suppose you must give a room full of professors one piece of actionable advice to improve their teaching.

What advice would you give?

Could be about lectures, activities, assignments, policies, etc.

Rules
1. Quote w/ your advice
2. Bonus for unpopular opinions
Reposted by Carlisle Rainey 👨‍💻📊📚
dwillis.bsky.social
Assign students to ask class-related questions and grade them on the quality/depth of those questions. Provide the feedback and use the questions to help shape what you do in the classroom. Hard to scale above 35-40 students, but has been super helpful to me.
carlislerainey.bsky.social
Let's talk about teaching.

Suppose you must give a room full of professors one piece of actionable advice to improve their teaching.

What advice would you give?

Could be about lectures, activities, assignments, policies, etc.

Rules
1. Quote w/ your advice
2. Bonus for unpopular opinions
carlislerainey.bsky.social
But to your point, we should require “careful research design” of both descriptive and causal papers. Certainly designs for causal claims have tricky parts, but designs for descriptive claims are not trivial.
carlislerainey.bsky.social
But different designs are required to defend causal and descriptive claims (and least to defend them well)—descriptive and causal papers must (usually) use different methods.

(And by “the empirical design,” I don’t think they mean the presence/absence of inferential statistics.)
carlislerainey.bsky.social
What’s your preferred label for the claim “affective polarization has increased in the US over the last 20 years”?

I’d call that a “descriptive” claim. What do you recommend instead?
Reposted by Carlisle Rainey 👨‍💻📊📚
sbmitche.bsky.social
1. We have a tendency to make things easier for students these days, but the more you demand, the more you will get back from the students (on average).
2. There is no teaching style that is best. Find what works for you and improve it over time.
carlislerainey.bsky.social
Let's talk about teaching.

Suppose you must give a room full of professors one piece of actionable advice to improve their teaching.

What advice would you give?

Could be about lectures, activities, assignments, policies, etc.

Rules
1. Quote w/ your advice
2. Bonus for unpopular opinions