This article explores the intuitions of secondary education majors regarding probability. This is accomplished by administering a two-question instrument to 113 participants. Their responses to these questions, and more importantly the explanations they provide for these answers, are analysed. The conclusions drawn may be informative to teachers of probability and statistics as they attempt to remediate common probabilistic misconceptions and devise more effective teaching strategies.
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.
The ?<sup>2</sup> goodness-of-fit test is often one of the first tests of hypotheses encountered by students. When some of the expected frequencies are small, classes need to be combined. A real-life example is given that illustrates a surprising sensitivity of the results of the test to the way in which such combinations are chosen.