This article describes 2 simple and effective classroom demonstrations of the Monty Hall Dilemma (MHD). The MHD is based on a choice scenario from the game show Let's Make A Deal (1975-1985) in which a contestant attempts to select the winning door from a set of 3 alternatives. The dilemma emerges when, after the initial selection, 1 of the nonwinning doors is revealed and the contestant must choose whether to stay with the initial selection or switch to the remaining door. Although intuitively it seems that the odds of winning are now 50-50, in reality, switching produces more wins that staying. The MHD illustrates the pitfalls associated with the use of cognitive shortcuts or heuristics and can be used to demonstrate the importance of empirical observation and experimentation.
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