Resource Library

This site contains materials to help teach a Chance course. It includes a newsletter, videos and audios, teaching aids, and other related Internet sources.

The applets in this section of Statistical Java address Power. Users can perform one or two tailed tests for proportions or means for one or two samples. Set the parameters and drag the mouse across the graph to see how effect size affects power. An article and an alternative source for this applet can be found at http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v11n3/java/power/ This page was formerly located at http://www.stat.vt.edu/~sundar/java/applets/Power.html

In this activity, students work in groups to provide practical interpretations of graphs, considering shape, center, and spread. Each group posts their interpretation for one graph and critiques other groups' interpretations on other graphs. Students examine key aspects (shape, spread, location, etc) of histograms and stem plots to develop the ability to interpret graphics. This activity gets the students up and out of their seats and working together. It is a good activity for early in a term. The Gallery Walk idea can be adapted for different sized classes but this activity has been designed for classes up to 65 students.

The applet in this section allows for simple data analysis of univariate data. Users can either generate normal or uniform data for k samples or copy and paste data from another source to a text box. A univariate analysis is performed for all k samples. A two-sample t-test (Pooled and Satterthwaite) is performed for k = 2. An ANOVA test is performed for k > 2. This page was formerly located at http://www.stat.vt.edu/~sundar/java/applets/Data.html

This resource defines what a p-value is, why .05 is significant, and when to use it. It also covers related topics such as one-tailed/two-tailed tests and hypothesis testing.

This resource defines and explains variance and standard deviation.

This website helps students learn concepts underlying statistical inference, through the simulation software, Sampling SIM. This software lets students explore sampling distributions by building population distributions, taking random samples, and exploring the behavior of sampling distributions and confidence intervals. The site includes instructional modules and assessment instruments. Key words: measures of center, sampling, sampling distribution, confidence interval, p-values, power

Statistics is a poem by Canadian physician Neil Harding McAlister (1952 - ). The poem contains material that can help with class discussions about sample surveys, medical experiments, and significance testing.

This applet simulates and plots the sampling distribution of various statistics (i.e. mean, standard deviation, variance). The applet allows the user to specify the population distribution, sample size, and statistic. An animated sample from the population is shown and the statistic is plotted. This can be repeated to produce the sampling distribution of the statistic. After the sampling distribution is plotted it can be compared to a normal distribution by overlaying a normal curve. These features make it useful for introducing students in a first course to the idea of a sampling distribution. The site also includes instructions and exercises. Also available at: http://www.stat.ucla.edu/~dinov/courses_students.dir/Applets.dir/SamplingDistributionApplet.html

The applets in this section of Statistical Java allow you to see how the Central Limit Theorem works. The main page gives the characteristics of five non-normal distributions (Bernoulli, Poisson, Exponential, U-shaped, and Uniform). Users then select one of the distributions and change the sample size to see how the distribution of the sample mean approaches normality. Users can also change the number of samples. To select between the different applets you can click on Statistical Theory, the Central Limit Theorem and then the Main Page. At the bottom of this page you can make your applet selection. This page was formerly located at http://www.stat.vt.edu/~sundar/java/applets/