This activity uses student's own data to introduce bivariate relationship using hand size to predict height. Students enter their data through a real-time online database. Data from different classes are stored and accumulated in the database. This real-time database approach speeds up the data gathering process and shifts the data entry and cleansing from instructor to engaging students in the process of data production.
A cartoon about the perception that statistics exams are difficult. Cartoon by John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea from Dennis Pearl (The Ohio State University). Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites.
Variability is the law of life, and as no two faces are the same, so no two bodies are alike, and no two individuals react alike and behave alike under the abnormal conditions which we know as disease. A quote by Canadian physician and medical educator Sir William Osler (1859 - 1919). The quote appears in William Osler: Aphorisms from his bedside teachings and writings, (Henry Schuman; 1950, page 104).
This website provides a comprehensive overview of descriptive statistics (mean/median/mode, range, standard deviation, and variance) through informative webpages with examples, links to data sets, and problems for the readers to try for themselves.
The activity is designed to help students develop a better intuitive understanding of what is meant by variability in statistics. Emphasis is placed on the standard deviation as a measure of variability. As they learn about the standard deviation, many students focus on the variability of bar heights in a histogram when asked to compare the variability of two distributions. For these students, variability refers to the "variation" in bar heights. Other students may focus only on the range of values, or the number of bars in a histogram, and conclude that two distributions are identical in variability even when it is clearly not the case. This activity can help students discover that the standard deviation is a measure of the density of values about the mean of a distribution and to become more aware of how clusters, gaps, and extreme values affect the standard deviation. Key words: Variability, standard deviation
A song for use in helping students to recognize how a change in units affects the variance (since variance is expressed in squared units). Music & Lyrics by Tom Toce, ©2015 Retrograde Music. This song is part of an NSF-funded library of interactive songs that involved students creating responses to prompts that are then included in the lyrics (see www.causeweb.org/smiles for the interactive version of the song, a short reading covering the topic, and an assessment item).
This resource defines and explains standard deviation and the normal distribution.
A collection of several applets related to probability.
This resource provides two sets of detailed notes on the Bernoulli and Binomial distributions. Additional readings, examples, exercises, and links to applets illustrating the respective distributions are also given.
The sixth chapter of an online Introduction to Biostatistics course. Three sets of lecture notes are provided (only the first one works). Additionally, links for additional reading and exercises with solutions are provided.