Leading expert in applied data analysis joins Haskayne School of Business

The work of Dr. Andrew Hayes, PhD, has come to the aid of researchers around the world who rely on quantitative methods in social sciences. Now the University of Calgary campus will benefit from his expertise with workshops offered to researchers to enhance their statistical research methods. The first free workshop runs March 1 to 31 and registrations are now open to UCalgary researchers. Those interested are encouraged to register fast as there are limited spots available.

“My audience is the everyday researcher, not the professional methodologist. So the statistical tools I develop and the way that I teach and consult are always focused on helping people understand their day-to-day data analysis problems in a way that empowers them in the future,” says Hayes.

Highly Cited Researcher

In both 2019 and 2020, Hayes was named a Highly Cited Researcher by Web of Science. The list, produced by the Web of Science Group, identifies natural and social scientists who produced multiple papers ranking in the top one per cent by citations for their field and year of publication, demonstrating significant research influence among their peers.

Hayes has been dedicated to the nuances of methodology and statistical programming, making new methods available in widely implemented software. He invented the PROCESS macro for SPSS, SAS, and R, software that is used by almost all researchers doing work exploring mediation and moderation effects.

“I think researchers tend to resist using new methods and techniques when they are not available in software with which they are already familiar. Most researchers are too busy with the nuances of theory development and testing and study design to learn a new computer language or software interface to employ the latest data analysis technique,” says Hayes.

“My work usually is accompanied by some kind of extension or 'plug-in' for software that is already being widely used by many researchers in lots of different disciplines. That dramatically reduces the effort needed to integrate something new into one's research and facilitates adoption of a technique into one's methodological toolbox.”

Impact reaches several academic fields

In business research, the quantitative methods outlined by Hayes have made an impact to work in organizational behaviour and human resources, which is the area group he joined at Haskayne on Jan. 1, 2021 as Distinguished Research Professor. The impact of his statistical tools also extends to marketing, behavioural accounting and entrepreneurship in the realm of business research and also to fields such as education, psychology, political science, and social work.

“We are excited to be welcoming Andy to Haskayne,” says Dr. Sandy Hershcovis, PhD, associate dean, academic and professor, organizational behaviour and human resources, Haskayne School of Business. “His statistical work is legendary. The tools he has developed have simplified the intense number-crunching involved in social science research which has allowed researchers to focus on the problems they are exploring rather than having to become an expert computer scientist.”

Opportunities to attend courses, workshops

Hayes will be teaching for-credit graduate courses in advanced behavioural statistics open to graduate students from around the university in 2021-2022. Graduate students are welcome to take the free workshop as it may provide a beneficial base for the for-credit course.

Starting in the summer of 2021, he will be delivering statistics workshops that will be marketed to researchers from around the world, commanding a premium for access to his expertise.

“Haskayne has recruited a phenomenal group of scholars over the past few years,” says Dr. Jim Dewald, dean, Haskayne School of Business. “Andy moves us to a whole new level, and more importantly for the broader university community, his work embodies the spirit of transdisciplinary scholarship.”