In this article, I introduce a novel applet (“module”) for exploring probability distributions, their
samples, and various related statistical concepts. The module is primarily designed to be used by
the instructor in the introductory course, but it can be used far beyond it as well. It is a free,
cross-platform, stand-alone interactive application based on Wolfram Research’s novel
computable document format (CDF) technology. It features over thirty common discrete and
continuous distributions and can be used to illustrate concepts such as random samples,
population and sample means and medians, histograms, kernel density estimators, boxplots, and
cumulative distribution, survival, and hazard functions all while dynamically linking samples
and estimators to adjustable distribution parameters in real-time. Additionally, the module
includes real-world datasets to aid in communicating the concept of fitting a distribution to data.
It is hoped that the module will be helpful to instructors at both the high school and college
levels for the conceptual understanding of distributions. A simplified version geared specifically
toward out-of-class student learning in the introductory course is also made available for
students’ use. Both are accessible from http://www.baylor.edu/statistics/disttool.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education