Resource Library

Residual plots and other diagnostics are important to deciding whether or not linear regression is appropriate for a set of data. Many students might believe that if the correlation coefficient is strong enough, these diagnostic checks are not important. The data set included in this activity was created to lure students into a situation that looks on the surface to be appropriate for the use of linear regression but is instead based (loosely) on a quadratic function. Key words: regression, residuals

This activity provides students with 24 histograms representing distributions with differing shapes and characteristics. By sorting the histograms into piles that seem to go together, and by describing those piles, students develop awareness of the different versions of particular shapes (e.g., different types of skewed distributions, or different types of normal distributions), that not all histograms are easy to classify, that there is a difference between models (normal, uniform) and characteristics (skewness, symmetry, etc.). Key words: Histogram, shape, normal, uniform, skewed, symmetric, bimodal

This article describes an interactive activity illustrating sampling distributions for means, properties of confidence intervals, properties of hypothesis testing, confidence intervals for means, and hypothesis tests for means. Students generate and analyze data and through simulation explore these concepts. The activity is completed in three parts. The three parts of the activity can be used in sequence or they can be used individually as "stand alone" activities. This allows the educator flexibility in utilizing the activity. Part I illustrates the sampling distribution of the sample mean. Part II illustrates confidence intervals for the population mean. Part III illustrates hypothesis tests for the population mean. This activity is appropriate for use in an introductory college or high school AP statistics course. Key words: sampling distribution of a sample mean, confidence interval for a mean, hypothesis test on a mean, simulation, random rectangles

Lisp-Stat is an extensible statistical computing environment for data analysis, statistical instruction and research, with an emphasis on providing a framework for exploring the use of dynamic graphical methods. The object-oriented programming system is also used as the basis for statistical model representations, such as linear and nonlinear regression models and generalized linear models. Many aspects of the system design were motivated by the S language.

MacAnova is a free, noncommercial, interactive statistical analysis program for Windows 95/98/NT, Windows 3.1 with Win32s, Macintosh and Unix. MacAnova has many capabilities but its strengths are analysis of variance and related models, matrix algebra, time series analysis (time and frequency domain), and (to a lesser extent) uni-variate and multi-variate exploratory statistics.

This site offers links to a multitude of data tables in PDF format. Topics include national trends in injury hospitalizations, trends in health and aging, summary health statistics for the U.S. population, trends in health insurance and access to medical care for children under age 19 years, and many more.

This site provides links to tests and quizzes for the Statistics and Data Analysis for Public Policy and Sociology course at Duke University for 1992 through 1995.

In this handout, students are asked to compare the ages of terminated employees to the ages of retained employees. Students will use the comparison to decide if the data supports the conclusion of age discrimination.

The datasets on this page are classified by analysis technique (ANOVA, Linear Regression, Markov Chain Monte Carlo, Nonlinear Regression, and Univariate Summary Statistics) and by level of difficulty (lower, average, higher). They were originally intended to test statistical software.

This page contains information and links about statistical literacy. Some links are to textbooks, online articles, resources, and information about upcoming events.