Resource Library

A cartoon for use in discussions about the value of using a placebo in an experiment. The cartoon is the work of Theresa McCracken and appears as #7813 on McHumor.com Free for non-profit use in statistics course such as in lectures and course websites.

A cartoon for use in discussions about the value of using a placebo in an experiment (especially if the results are to be analyzed using a t-test). The cartoon is the work of Theresa McCracken and appears as #6864 on McHumor.com Free for non-profit use in statistics course such as in lectures and course websites.

July 27, 2010 Activity Webinar presented by Herle McGowan, North Carolina State University and hosted by Leigh Slauson, Capital University. Extra materials available for download free of charge. In this webinar, the webinar discusses the end-of-semester project that is used in North Carolina State's introductory statistics course. This project supports statistical thinking by allowing students to apply knowledge accumulated throughout the semester. Students are presented with a research question and must design and carry out an experiment, analyze the resulting data and form a conclusion over the course of several class periods.

September 28, 2010 Activity webinar presented by Carolyn Cuff, Westminster College and hosted by Leigh Slauson, Capital University. Extra materials available for download free of charge. Students must confront their misconceptions before we can teach them new concepts. Naively, a census is an accurate method to quantify a population parameter. A very brief, memorable and easy to implement activity demonstrates that a census is at best difficult even for a small and easily enumerated population.

October 26, 2010 Activity Webinar presented by Tisha Hooks, Winona State University and hosted by Leigh Slauson, Capital University. Extra materials available to download free of charge. The purpose of this webinar is to introduce an activity to enhance students' understanding of various descriptive measures. In particular, by completing this hands-on activity students will experience a visual interpretation of a mean, median, outlier, and the concept of distance-to-mean.

Mathematics alone make us feel the limits of our intelligence. For we can always suppose in the case of an experiment that it is inexplicable because we don't happen to have all the data. In mathematics we have all the data and yet we don't understand. is a quote by French philosopher and political activist Simone Weil (1909-1943). The quote may be found on page 511 of the second volume of "Simone Weil's Notebooks" first published in English in 1956 (translated by Arthur Willis).

The world of science lives fairly comfortably with paradox. We know that light is a wave and also that light is a particle. The discoveries made in the infinitely small world of particle physics indicate randomness and chance, and I do not find it any more difficult to live with the paradox of a universe of randomness and chance and a universe of pattern and purpose than I do with light as a wave and light as a particle. Living with contradiction is nothing new to the human being is a quote by American young adult fiction author Madeline L'Engle (1918-2007). The quote is on page 125 of her 1988 book "Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage".

Whatever the progress of human knowledge, there will always be room for ignorance, hence for chance and probability. is a quote by French mathematician Emile Borel (1871 - 1956). The quote may be found on page 12 of his 1914 book "Le hasard"

Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule. is a quote by English novelist Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870). The quote appears in chapter 40 of his popular novel "Great Expectations" written as a weekly serial from December 1860 to August 1861. The line was spoken in the novel by Mr. Jaggers to Pip.

The quiet statisticians have changed our world - not by discovering new facts or technical developments but by changing the ways we reason, experiment and form our opinions about it. is a quote by Canadian science philosopher Ian Hacking (1936-). The quote is found on page 70 of his 1984 "Science" article "Trial by number" (volume 84 p. 67-70)