UPDATE May 10. SEM The Musical 6 is now on the books. Shown below are the new songs written this year, along with some photos of the performances (thanks to Chris Bedard and Xiaohui Tang for the pictures).
We had a surprise "visit" via video feed from three friends of the musical who moved last August from Texas Tech to Virginia Tech: Professor Anisa Zvonkovic (below, center), now department chair at VT; Kyung-Hee Lee (left), who finished her Ph.D. at TTU and is now a post-doc at VT; and Andrea "Hermione" Swenson (right), who finished her Master's at TTU and is studying for her Ph.D. at VT. The song they wrote is shown further down the page.
We also sang several songs from the previous five musicals (links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). For the first time ever, we ran a poll (see right-hand column) to help determine which songs from previous years to sing. The song "Parsimony," from SEM The Musical 1, is always what we close the show with, so it was not included in the poll. That's enough background. Here are this year's new songs...
Let’s Sing About It
Lyrics by Alan Reifman
(May be sung to the tune of “Tell Her About It,” Billy Joel)
Listen all you, SEM
users,
It’s our yearly, singing day,
To review the things we’ve learned, this semester,
In a most unusual, way,
From your model fit,
To max-i-mum likelihood,
You’ve learned practices that,
Expert modelers should,
Listen all you, SEM
users,
You’ve really come, a long way,
From regression, correlation, and pathways,
Through factors and CFA,
From constraining paths,
And checking, delta chi-square,
To run multi-groups and,
Seeing what paths, they share,
Let’s sing about it,
Cover, all the things, we do,
So that, all the concepts,
Now seem old, although they’re new,
Let’s sing about it,
From the blueprint, to the fit,
How to judge, a model,
Knowing how, to interpret,
(brief interlude)
Listen all you, SEM
users,
You can run a model, now,
You can draw the boxes, circles, and arrows,
Those are things, that you know how,
But to understand,
In depth, is what we seek,
To make each, of you,
A real, SEM
geek,
Let’s sing about it,
Cover, all the things, we do,
So that, all the concepts,
Now seem old, although they’re new,
Let’s sing about it,
From the blueprint, to the fit,
How to judge, a model,
Knowing how, to interpret,
So, now and then, you get an error,
Cause you’ve drawn, something in AMOS, that is wrong,
Make sure to use, the correct tools,
So figuring out the right way, won’t take long,
Listen all you, SEM
users,
You’ve, really, come, a long way,
From regression, correlation, and pathways,
Through factors and CFA,
From constraining paths,
And checking, delta chi-square,
To run multi-groups and,
Seeing what paths, they share,
Let’s sing about it,
Cover, all the things, we do,
So that, all the concepts,
Now seem old, although they’re new,
Let’s sing about it,
From the blueprint, to the fit,
How to judge, a model,
Knowing how, to interpret,
Let’s sing about it!
Sing about what, you’ve learned here,
We’ve got to, all sing about it,
How degrees-of-freedom work,
We’ve got to, all sing about it,
Finding out the, errors that lurk,
We’ve got to, all sing about it,
We’ve all got, models to run
We’ve got to, all sing about it
You know, we want to have fun,
We got to, all sing about it…
Sometimes you may want, to show how, two constructs relate,
Slowly, gently, contemplate each linkage,
Parsimony, compels one, to shrinkage,
Draw the paths you say, underlie the works at play,
Think of every type of route, though serpent-teen,
And listen to, the theory on your screen,
Close your eyes and surrender to creative schemes!
Push notions beyond, what you’ve read before!
Close your eyes, let your thinking start to soar!
And draw something, that gets right to the core!
Constructs, measures, hypotheses surround you ...
Hear them, feel them, closing in around you ...
Open up your mind, new ideas let it find,
Try to make sense, of what all these things can mean,
The beauty of, the theory on your screen,
Try and model a journey, through a strange, new world!
Go beyond what, the world has known before!
Let arrows, fill in what you think you see!
Only then can you let the paths run free!
Theories, concepts, find your inspiration!
Later, check your, identification!
Let it calculate, the paths that you estimate,
ORCHESTRA CRESCENDO
You have to convey, all that you mean,
You Have Not Shown It’s Causal
Lyrics (and performance) by Devin DuPree
(May be sung to the tune of “When You Say Nothing at All,” Overstreet/Schlitz, popularized by Alison Krauss)
Sometimes you may want, to show how, two constructs relate,
And you may want to show, that B’s caused by A.
Try as you may, it is hard to define,
If Y causes X, or if X causes Y.
Even with a, significant correlation,
There are two other things, you need to, show causation,
Time ordering and, ruling out third variables...
And without that,
You have not shown, it’s causal.
There's a link between, breast implants and suicide,
The risk for women, who do is, three times as high.
Is this because, they don’t like, what they’ve done,
Or are both, caused by, body dis-affection?
Even with a, significant correlation,
There are two other things, you need to, show causation,
Time ordering and, ruling out third variables...
And without that,
You have not shown, it’s causal...
Theory on Your Screen
Lyrics by Alan Reifman
(May be sung to the tune of “Music of the Night,” Lloyd
Webber/Hart, from Phantom of the Opera)
(SLOWLY and SOFTLY)
Thinking over, every
implication,
Direct pathways, maybe mediation,
Carefully consider, and overcome your jitter,
Direct pathways, maybe mediation,
Carefully consider, and overcome your jitter,
You have to convey, all that you mean,
For you record, the theory on your screen,
Slowly, gently, contemplate each linkage,
Parsimony, compels one, to shrinkage,
Draw the paths you say, underlie the works at play,
Think of every type of route, though serpent-teen,
And listen to, the theory on your screen,
Close your eyes and surrender to creative schemes!
Push notions beyond, what you’ve read before!
Close your eyes, let your thinking start to soar!
And draw something, that gets right to the core!
Constructs, measures, hypotheses surround you ...
Hear them, feel them, closing in around you ...
Open up your mind, new ideas let it find,
Try to make sense, of what all these things can mean,
The beauty of, the theory on your screen,
Try and model a journey, through a strange, new world!
Go beyond what, the world has known before!
Let arrows, fill in what you think you see!
Only then can you let the paths run free!
Theories, concepts, find your inspiration!
Later, check your, identification!
Let it calculate, the paths that you estimate,
Find the fruits, of the ideas, that you glean,
The power of, the theory on your screen,
ORCHESTRA CRESCENDO
You have to convey, all that you mean,
For you record, the theory on your screen...
S-E-M
Lyrics by Anisa Zvonkovic and Kyung-Hee Lee
(May be sung to the tune of "Edelweiss," Rodgers/Hammerstein, from The Sound of Music)
S-E-M, S-E-M,
Every model, we're building,
Small but right, fit and tight,
Keeps us happy, analyzing,
Helping our vitas, to bloom and grow,
Bloom and grow, for tenure,
Texas Tech, Virginia Tech,
Bless Dr. Reifman, forever
S-E-M
Lyrics by Anisa Zvonkovic and Kyung-Hee Lee
(May be sung to the tune of "Edelweiss," Rodgers/Hammerstein, from The Sound of Music)
S-E-M, S-E-M,
Every model, we're building,
Small but right, fit and tight,
Keeps us happy, analyzing,
Helping our vitas, to bloom and grow,
Bloom and grow, for tenure,
Texas Tech, Virginia Tech,
Bless Dr. Reifman, forever
