Resource Library

I am not accustomed to saying anything with certainty after only one or two observations. is a quote by Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564). The quote is found in "Epistola rationem modumque propinandi radicis Chynae decocti".

The following exercise can illustrate the problem of bias in estimators to students in statistics courses. In some advanced courses an alternative estimator may be presented and properties of this estimator may be investigated via Monte Carlo studies.

This article describes a dataset on body temperature, gender, and heart rate. It addresses concepts like true means, confidence intervals, t-statistics, t-tests, the normal distribution, and regression.

The dataset presented in this article contains information on respiratory function and smoking. The data can be used to explore descriptive statistics, graphical analysis, regression, and observational studies. The data are in .dat format.

This Java applet tutorial prompts the user to input the components of a hypothesis test for the mean. Hints are provided whenever the user enters an incorrect value. Once the steps are completed and the user has chosen the correct conclusion for accepting or rejecting the null hypothesis, a statement summarizing the conclusion is displayed. The applet is supported by an explanation of the steps in hypothesis testing and a description of one-tailed and two-tailed tests.

This is an exercise in interpreting data that is generated by a phenomenon that causes the data to become biased. You are presented with the end product of this series of events. The craters occur in size classes that are color-coded. After generating the series of impacts, it becomes your assigned task to figure out how many impact craters correspond to each of the size class categories.

This lesson deals with the statistics of political polls and ideas like sampling, bias, graphing, and measures of location. As quoted on the site, "Upon completing this lesson, students will be able to identify and differentiate between types of political samples, as well as select and use statistical and visual representations to describe a list of data. Furthermore, students will be able to identify sources of bias in samples and find ways of reducing and eliminating sampling bias." A link to a related worksheet is included.

This lesson on observational studies discusses the nature of such studies, the relationships between various data sets, and regression. Graphs illustrate the relationships, and exercises at the end test the user's comprehension and understanding. It is taken from the online textbook for West. Mich. Univ. online introductory stats course.

This section of the Engineering Statistics Handbook describes in detail the process of choosing an experimental design to obtain the results you need. The basic designs an engineer needs to know about are described in detail.

This website provides lesson plans, activities, a problem bank, and links to references that meet NCTM standards for probability.