A coin-flipping exercise to introduce the p-value


Authors: 
Maxwell, N. P.
Category: 
Volume: 
2(1)
Pages: 
Online
Year: 
1994
Publisher: 
Journal of Statistics Education
URL: 
http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v2n1/maxwell.html
Abstract: 

The p-value can be introduced with a coin flipping exercise. The instructor flips a coin ten times and has a student call each flip. The students record their thoughts after each flip. The instructor reports that the caller calls every flip correctly. In this exercise students intuitively reject a null hypothesis because the p-value is too small. Students are reassured to learn from this concrete example that they intuitively followed the logic of statistical inference before they studied statistics.

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