Issues in Teaching the Comparison of Variability to Non-Statistics Students

One of the main themes of statistics courses is to teach about variability, as well as location. This is especially important for non-statistics students, who often overlook variability. We consider particularly the problem of comparing variability among k samples (k > 2) that are not necessarily drawn from Gaussian populations. This can also be viewed as testing for homoskedasticity of samples. We examine tools for this problem from the perspective of their suitability for inclusion in elementary statistics courses for students of non-mathematical subjects. The ideas are illustrated by an example that arose in a student project.