Resource Library

A cartoon to teach about using summary statistics to draw out the salient features of a data set. Cartoon by John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea from Dennis Pearl (The Ohio State University). Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites.

A cartoon to to help students remember that about 95% of data in a symmetric histogram lies within 2 standard deviations of the mean. Cartoon by John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea from Dennis Pearl (The Ohio State University). Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites.

A cartoon to teach about outliers in scatterplots. The cartoon is #114 in the "Life in Research" series at www.vadio.com. Free to use with attribution in the classroom or on course websites.

A cartoon that might be used in discussing excessive interim analyses. The cartoon is #24 in the "Life in Research" series at www.vadio.com. Free to use with attribution in the classroom or on course websites.

A cartoon to teach about understanding large error bars (e.g. caused by the effect of outliers). The cartoon is #9 in the "Life in Research" series at www.vadio.com. Free to use with attribution in the classroom or on course websites.

A cartoon to teach the importance of including error bars to show the level of chance variation - as opposed to showing only the possibly strong trend that might be shown by averages. The cartoon is #22 in the "Life in Research" series at www.vadio.com. Free to use with attribution in the classroom or on course websites.

This tool provides individuals with opportunities to quiz themselves on levels of measurement in a game-like environment much like "Who Wants to be a Millionaire."

A cartoon that can be used in teaching about random walks. Cartoon by John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea from Dennis Pearl (The Ohio State University). Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites. (note - in the U.K. the word "redundancy" in labor statistics refers to people who have been laid-off because their job no longer exists).

This java applet provides students with opportunities to visualize the Monty Hall paradox (i.e., the famous "three-door" problem often discussed in introductory statistics courses). By going through the simulation and reading the accompanying materials, students can better understand concepts related to probability, and they can also see the need to gather data in order to test theories about what might happen under particular conditions (especially since the outcome of the Monty Hall problem tends to contradict students' initial intuitions).

This applet is designed to allow users to explore the relationship between histograms and the most typical summary statistics. The user can choose from several types of histograms (uniform, normal, symmetric, skewed, etc.), or can create their own by manipulating the bars of the histogram. The statistics available for display are mean, median, mode, range, standard deviation, and interquartile range. Also available is a "Practice Guessing" option, in which the values of the statistics are hidden until the user has entered guesses for each value.