Does My Baby Really Look Like Me? Using Tests for Resemblance to Teach Topics in Categorical Data Analysis

Abstract

Many new parents have heard claims of a striking resemblance between them and their babies. As parents ourselves, we were skeptical of such claims so we devised a study to objectively answer the question "Does my baby really look like me?" In this webinar, we will present a study to test whether neutral observers perceive a resemblance between a parent and a child. We will demonstrate the general approach with two parent/child pairs (Amy and her daughter and Dan and his son) using survey data collected from introductory statistics students serving as neutral observers. We will then present ideas for incorporating the study design process, data collection, and analysis into different statistics courses.