A cartoon suitable for use in teaching the idea that association does not imply causation. The cartoon is number 552 (March, 2009) from the webcomic series at xkcd.com created by Randall Munroe. Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites under a creative commons attribution-non-commercial 2.5 license. A t-shirt with this cartoon is also available for sale at xkcd.com.
A cartoon suitable for use in teaching about linear estimates (also references median and bell-curve). The cartoon is number 314 (September, 2007) from the webcomic series at xkcd.com created by Randall Munroe. Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites under a creative commons attribution-non-commercial 2.5 license.
A cartoon suitable for use in teaching about scatterplots and correlation. The cartoon is number 388 (Feb, 2008) from the webcomic series at xkcd.com created by Randall Munroe. Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites under a creative commons attribution-non-commercial 2.5 license.
A cartoon to initiate discussions about how the correlation is a unitless number that does not change with changes in the units of the variables involved. The cartoon was created in February 2020 by British caetoonist John Landers based on an idea by Dennis Pearl (Penn State) and Larry Lesser (Univ of Texas at El Paso). An outline of a lesson plan for the use of the cartoon is given in a 2020 Teaching Statistics article by Dennis Pearl and Larry Lesser.
A poem written in 2019 by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso to discuss the simplest case of line of fit where the slope and correlation coefficients each have a value of 0. The poem is part of a collection of 8 poems published with commentary in the January 2020 issue of Journal of Humanistic Mathematics.
A joke to use in discussing the meaning of the slope in a linear trend. The joke was written in May 2019 by Larry Lesser, The University of Texas at El Paso, and Dennis Pearl, Penn State University.
A cartoon to be used for discussing the selection of the best explanatory variable in a regression model. The cartoon was used in the March 2017 CAUSE Cartoon Caption Contest. The winning caption was submitted by Michele Balik-Meisner, a student at North Carolina State University. The drawing was created by British cartoonist John Landers based on an idea from Dennis Pearl of Penn State University. A second winning entry, by Michael Posner of Villanova University, may be found at www.causeweb.org/cause/resources/fun/cartoons/variable-wheel-ii Three honorable mentions that rose to the top of the judging in the March competition included "No no no! You randomize AFTER you select your research topic!" by Mickey Dunlap from University of Georgia; "This isn't what I meant by random variable!" by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso; and "We find this method of finding 'significant' predictors to be quicker than using stepwise regression and it is even slightly more reproducible." by Greg Snow from Brigham Young University.
A cartoon to be used for discussing the selection of the best explanatory variable in a regression model. The cartoon was used in the March 2017 CAUSE Cartoon Caption Contest. The winning caption was submitted by Michael Posner, from Villanova University. The drawing was created by British cartoonist John Landers based on an idea from Dennis Pearl of Penn State University. A second winning entry, by Michele Balik-Meisner, a student at North Carolina State University, may be found at www.causeweb.org/cause/resources/fun/cartoons/variable-wheel-i Three honorable mentions that rose to the top of the judging in the March competition included "No no no! You randomize AFTER you select your research topic!" by Mickey Dunlap from University of Georgia; "This isn't what I meant by random variable!" by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso; and "We find this method of finding 'significant' predictors to be quicker than using stepwise regression and it is even slightly more reproducible." by Greg Snow from Brigham Young University.
This case study starts by the simple comparison of the prices of houses with and without fireplaces and extends the analysis to examine other characteristics of the houses with fireplace that may affect the price as well. The intent is to show the danger of using simple group comparisons to answer a question that involves many variables. The lesson shows the R code for doing this analysis; however, the data and the model could be used with another statistical software.
This paper comes from researchers at the NASA Langley Research Center and College of William & Mary.
"The experience of retinex image processing has prompted us to reconsider fundamental aspects of imaging and image processing. Foremost is the idea that a good visual representation requires a non-linear transformation of the recorded (approximately linear) image data. Further, this transformation appears to converge on a specific distribution. Here we investigate the connection between numerical and visual phenomena. Specifically the questions explored are: (1) Is there a well-defined consistent statistical character associated with good visual representations? (2) Does there exist an ideal visual image? And (3) what are its statistical properties?"