Resource Library

This issue contains an interview with Sallie Keller-McNulty and an article about which came first -- the chicken or the egg. Other articles include a discussion related to an AP Statistics example of seeing the trees for the forest (this focuses on understanding variability between groups and within groups), a discussion of how high r can go, a simulation piece focused on shrinking students, poisoned children, and bootsraps, and an example of a permutation test of the Challenger O-Ring data.

This issue contains an article that provides an example of a paired samples test related to flying and gliding. It also includes an article about understanding confounding from lurking variables using graphs. Other articles include: a short description about what the t-tests actually tests, an interview with David Moore about why 30 is the "magic" number, a discussion about whether or not outliers should be deleted from a data set, a discussion of observational studies, and a simulation piece about random numbers from non-random arithmetic.

A cartoon for use in discussions about how to critique quantitative evidence presented in the media. The cartoon is the work of Theresa McCracken and appears as #7203 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. 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".