Resource Library

A video to teach about the uses of the Chi-squared statistic for goodness-of-fit and independence. The concept and lyrics are by Scott Crawford of University of Wyoming. The video won an honorable mention in the 2015 A-mu-sing contest. The music in the video is the Stevie Wonder hit "Signed Sealed Delivered I'm Yours."

A song about the various cautions that go with interpreting the P-value especially the large sample caution, a strict reliance on the 5% significance level, and errors in interpreting results as proof of a hypothesis. The song and musical arrangements in the video were written by Michael Greenacre of Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona and may be sung to the tune of Irving Berlin's "There's no business like show business." The lyrics were sung by Gurdeep Stephens in the recording. The video took second place in the 2015 A-mu-sing contest.

A poem consisting of two quasi Haikus that can used in discussing the Cramer-Rao lower bound on the variance of a normally distributed statistic. The poem was written by Ming-Lun Ho of Chabot College and was given a third place award in the 2015 A-mu-sing contest.

A song to teach the basic idea of Analysis of Variance - comparing the variance between groups to the variance within groups. May be sung to the tune of the classic Christmas song "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (John Frederick Coots and Haven Gillespie). The lyrics were written by Dennis Pearl of Penn State University. Musical accompaniment realization and vocals are by Joshua Lintz from University of Texas at El Paso.

A song that can help launch critical discussion of common impressions about the role of data, sample size, and significance testing. May be sung to the tune of the signature 90s hit "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Nirvana). Lyrics by Lawrence Mark Lesser of University of Texas at El Paso who first published them in the September 2015 issue of Amstat News.

"Our ability to use data effectively to make decisions or understand the world depends on our ability to see patterns and abstract from those patterns." is a quote by Dr. Felicia B LeClere (1958 - ), Senior Fellow at the National Opinion Research Ceenter (NORC) at University of Chicago. The quote is contained in an August 19, 2013 essay "Walking into Big Data" in the web magazine Inside Higher Ed.

A 5-panel gif animation than can be used in discussing setting up null and alternative hypotheses and the concept of a type I error. The idea for the animation was provided by Dr. Karen Banks from Indiana University and received second place in the 2015 A-mu-sing contest. The idea for the final panel of the gif (regarding Type I error) came from the participants at a breakout session on the use of cartoons and songs in teaching statistics at the 2015 U.S. Conference On Teaching Statistics. The cartoons are drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (second of two animations arising from the USCOTS session).

A 5-panel gif animation than can be used in discussing setting up null and alternative hypotheses and the concept of a type I error. The idea for the animation was provided by Dr. Karen Banks from Indiana University and received second place in the 2015 A-mu-sing contest. The idea for the final panel of the gif (regarding Type I error) came from the participants at a breakout session on the use of cartoons and songs in teaching statistics at the 2015 U.S. Conference On Teaching Statistics. The cartoons are drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (first of two animations arising from the USCOTS session).

"The key to good decision making is evaluating the available information - the data - and combining it with your own estimates of pluses and minuses." A quote by Brown University economist Emily Fair Oster (1980 - ) that can be used in discussing the use of data in decision making or in discussing the Bayesian idea of updating prior knowledge with data. The quote is contained in an August 9, 2013 essay in the Wall Street Journal written by Dr. Oster.

A song to reflect on the excitement of discovering the discipline of statistics. The song is a parody of "walking in Memphis," the 1991 hit of Grammy-winning artist Marc Cohn. The lyrics were written by Lawrence Mark Lesser of University of Texas at El Paso who first published them in the August 2014 issue of Amstat News. This song could enhance an outreach context, a general celebration of statistics, or serve to overview a statistical literacy or introductory statistics class.