Resource Library

Oops! ... I Picked the Wrong Test is a 4 minute, 12 second video that provides a fun review of common mistakes made in conducting hypothesis tests. The video was first sung for students in a Psychology class at the University of Oregon. The singer is Jennifer Simonds, Ph.D. of Westminster College in Salt Lake City Utah (where the video was filmed). The song is a parody of "Oops ... I did it again" by Britney Spears (2000). Characters: Britney Spearman - Jennifer Simonds, Chuck - Chuck Tate, Frustrated Professor - Bill Bynum, Dancers - Cressa Perloff (dance captain), Kathleen Ware, and Mariah Mercer. Credits: Lyrics, vocals, directions, and production by Jennifer Simonds; Recording and Sound Engineering by Ted Sablay; Final Cut Consulting by Zelda Randazzo; Audio Sync Assistance by Lizzie Randazzo; Camera Work and Props by Amy Fairchild. This video won the overall Grand Prize in the 2009 CAUSE A-Mu-sing contest.

For the biologist who doubts an old hypothesis or wishes to test out a new one, there is the biological laboratory. There, under conditions over which he can exercise the most rigid control, he can vary the light, the air, the food, which his plants or his animals receive, from the moment of birth throughout their lifetime. Keeping all the conditions but one constant, he can make accurate measurement of the effect of the one. This is the ideal method of science, the method of the controlled experiment, through which all hypotheses may be submitted to a strict objective test. ... Unfortunately such methods of experiment are denied to us when our materials are humanity and the whole fabric of a social order. This is a quote from American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-1978) from the introduction to the 1973 edition of her 1929 book "Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization".

A set of twenty statistics anagrams that might be used for an end of semester terminology review. This collection of anagrams appeared in the article "Even More Fun Learning Stats" by Lawrence M. Lesser in issue #49 (2007) of "Stats" magazine (pp.5-8,19, 27).

The statistician who supposes that his main contribution to the planning of an experiment will involve statistical theory, finds repeatedly that he makes his most valuable contribution simply by persuading the investigator to explain why he wishes to do the experiment, by persuading him to justify the experimental treatments, and to explain why it is that the experiment, when completed, will assist him in his research. A quote from American statistician, and founder of the North Carolina State University Department of Statistics, Gertrude Cox (1900-1978). The quote is from a speech delivered at the Department of Agriculture in Washington D.C. on January 11th, 1950. The quote also appears in Chapter 1 of W.E. Deming's 1960 book "Sample Design in Business Research".

February 13, 2007 webinar presented by Jim Albert, Bowling Green State University, and hosted by Jackie Miller, The Ohio State University. An introductory statistics course is described that is entirely taught from a baseball perspective. This class has been taught as a special section of the basic introductory course offered at Bowling Green State University . Topics in data analysis are communicated using current and historical baseball datasets. Probability is introduced by describing and playing tabletop baseball games. Inference is taught by distinguishing between a player's "ability" and his "performance", and then describing how one can learn about a player's ability based on his season performance. Baseball issues such as the proper interpretation of situational and "streaky" data are used to illustrate statistical inference.

January 9, 2007 webinar presented by Sterling Hilton, Brigham Young University, and hosted by Jackie Miler, The Ohio State University. Beginning in January 2005, the ASA (with support from the National Science Foundation) started a series of three workshops for statisticians and mathematics education researchers. The purpose of these workshops was to make recommendations on ways to promote high-quality education research that can stand up under the scrutiny of other scientific communities and that will allow work to be compared and combined across research programs. A draft version of the final report from these workshops entitled "Using Statistics Effectively in Mathematics Education Research" has been written. This webinar summarizes the major points of this report and discuss their relevance to researchers in statistics education.

December 12, 2006 webinar presented by Michelle Everson, University of Minnesota, and hosted by Jackie Miller, The Ohio State University. This webinar focuses on describing an introductory statistics course that is taught completely online. The structure of this course is described, and samples of different student assignments and activities are presented. Assessment data and student feedback about the course are also presented. Discussion focuses on issues that must be considered when developing and administering an online course, such as the instructor's role in the online course and ways to create an active learning environment in an online course.

March 13, 2007 webinar presented by Andrew Zieffler, University of Minnesota, and hosted by Jackie Miller, The Ohio State University. The interdisciplinary field of inquiry that is statistics education research spans a diverse set of disciplines and methodologies. A recent review of a subset of this literature, the research on teaching and learning statistics at the college level, was used to raise some practical issues and pose some challenges to the field of statistics education. These are addressed in this CAUSE webinar. In addition, a recent doctoral dissertation study is used to illustrate some of these challenges and offer suggestions for how to deal with them.

...experiment without mathematics will neither sufficiently discipline the mind or sufficiently extend our knowledge... is a quote by Scottish geophysicist Balfour Stewart (1828 - 1887). The quote is found in a letter from Stewart to Henry Roscoe of Owens College on June 2, 1870.

Theory is a good thing, but a good experiment is forever. is a quote by Russian nobel prize winning physicist Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa (1894 - 1984). The quote is found on page 160 of "Experiment, theory, practice, articles and addresses volume 46."