A song written and performed by Lawrence M. Lesser (The University of Texas at El Paso) to explore why line of best fit is generally implemented by minimizing the sum of the squared errors. The song may be sung to the tune of “Beat It!”, Michael Jackson’s 1983 #1 hit that went platinum, won a Grammy, and helped make Thriller the top-selling album ever. Appears on p. 36 of the September 2014 Amstat News.
This cartoon caption can be used to discuss the difference between one- and two-sided tests (and why the gym in the cartoon might choose the former). The cartoon was used in the June 2025 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Steve Wang from Swarthmore College. The cartoon was drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University.
The lyrics for this song were written and the music was created and performed in 2021 by undergraduate student Jonathan F. Spencer from Miami University in Ohio. The song took second place in the song/video category of the 2021 A-mu-sing Contest. The lyric is designed to stimulate discussion of testing in an unusual situation with a “research question” creating a point alternative, the singers’ “best fit lover,” being compared with a null of “someone else.”
The lyrics and the direction for this video were by high school student Jordyn Gross with acting by the students in Mr. Schlaegel's 2018 AP Statistics course at Burlington Township High School. The video uses the music from Taylor Swift's 2012 hit song by the same name. The video earned fifth place in the song/video category of the 2019 A-mu-sing Contest and is designed to discuss the meaning of Type I and Type II errors in hypothesis testing situations.
This cartoon was created by Austin Boyd from University of Tennessee and took first place in the cartoon category of the 2019 A-mu-sing Contest. The cartoon provides a humorous way to facilitate conversation about the multiple comparisons caveat (that the chance of getting at least one significant result grows with the number of things being tested) and the large sample caveat (that it is more likely to see small p-values with smaller effect sizes when you have a larger sample size).
A poem reflecting on Type I errors and the use of the null hypothesis in testing by Micah Wascher, a high school student at North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. The poem won an honorable mention in the 2025 A-mu-sing Contest.
"P-value's More than Alpha" is a music video by David Yew, an undergraduate student at Singapore Management University, that reviews introductory normal theory testing. The music is a fun parody of Billy Joel's 1989 hit song "We Didn't Start the Fire" and took second place in the 2025 A-mu-sing Contest. David also credits his statistics instructor, Rosie Ching, for providing feedback.
A cartoon to use in explaining how hypothesis testing typically includes a null hypothesis that nothing is going on except random chance and p-values are calculated under that assumption. The cartoon was created by Joy Reeves from the Rachel Carson Council of Duke University and took first place in the cartoon/joke category of the 2025 A-mu-sing competition.
A song to teach about when the mean versus the median is better for describing a distribution. The lyric was authored by Lawrence Mark Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso. The song may be sung to the tune of Taylor Swift's Grammy-winning 2010 hit "Mean". Free for use in non-commercial teaching.
A cartoon that can be used to discuss the multiple testing issue and the concept of p-hacking. The cartoon was used in the June 2021 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Jim Alloway from EMSQ Associates. The cartoon was drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University.