This article describes an activity through which students collect data and explore ways to display them through graphs and charts. It also motivates various summary measures for location, spread and shape. Finally, it gives an introduction to concepts of validity, reliability and unbiasedness.
A lottery coincidence provides the background for discussing the assessment of probabilities and the definition of events.
In spite of the name, simple linear regression presents a number of conceptual difficulties, particularly for introductory students. This article describes a simulation tool that provides a hands-on method for illuminating the relationship between parameters and sample statistics.
This article describes an illustration of Bayesian inference that has proved popular with students.
This article describes a simple computer program which graphically demonstrates both Type I and Type II statistical errors.
The Chart Wizard in Microsoft Excel is supposed to make chart drawing so easy that a child can do it, yet many intelligent adults fail to use it successfully. This article suggests some simple principles that resolve many of the difficulties.
This article derives a simple upper bound for the sample standard deviation that could be useful in guarding against gross errors of calculation.
Water quality experiments, especially the use of macroinvertebrates as indicators of water quality, offer an ideal context for connecting statistics and science. In the STAR program for secondary students and teachers, water quality experiments were also used as a context for teaching statistics. In this article, we trace one activity that uses virtual streams and repeated sampling to develop the notion of a hypothesis test for one proportion.
Standard Microsoft Excel functions and the Excel Data Table facility are used in randomization applications using resampling with and without replacement.
This article presents some data from a major sports event that can be used in common statistical analyses.