This text was written for an introductory class in Statistics suitable for students in Business, Communications, Economics, Psychology, Social Science, or liberal arts; that is, this is the first and last class in Statistics for most students who take it. It also covers logic and reasoning at a level suitable for a general education course. SticiGui provides text, interactive tools, lecture videos, sample exam reviews, and more for a course in basic statistical concepts.
This page supports an in-class exercise that highlights several key Bayesian concepts. The scenario is as follows: a large paper bag contains pieces of candy with wrappings of different color, and we are interested in learning about the unknown proportion of yellow-wrapped pieces of candy. After completing the exercises, we will be familiar with the following concepts and ideas: probability distributions can quantify degree of belief, prior distribution, posterior distribution, sequential updating, conjugacy, Cromwell’s Rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwell's_rule), the data overwhelm the prior, Bayes factors, Savage-Dickey density ratio, sensitivity analysis, coherence.
The goal of this text is to provide a broad set of topics and methods that will give students a solid foundation in understanding how to make decisions with data. This text presents workbook-style, project-based material that emphasizes real world applications and conceptual understanding. Each chapter contains:
The text is highly adaptable in that the various chapters/parts can be taken out of order or even skipped to customize the course to your audience. Depending on the level of in-class active learning, group work, and discussion that you prefer in your course, some of this work might occur during class time and some outside of class.
The Military Spending lab uses interactive, online graphs to better understand total military spending for each country. We see the limitations of traditional histograms and also consider the importance of using appropriate scales when comparing countries. The emphasisis of this lab is on understanding the impact of appropriate data transformations and data visualizations.
App: http://shiny.grinnell.edu/Military_Spending_Basic/
Handout: http://web.grinnell.edu/individuals/kuipers/stat2labs/Handouts/MilSpendB...
The NYPD lab uses interactive, online graphs to better understand patterns in stop and arrest data for the New York Police Department. These data were originally collected by New York Police Department officers and record information gathered as a result of stop question and frisk (SQF) encounters during 2006. These data were used in a study carried out, under contract to the New York City Police Foundation, by the Rand Corporation's Center on Quality Policing. The release of the study, "Analysis of Racial Disparities in the New York Police Department's Stop, Question, and Frisk Practices" (Rand Document TR-534-NYCPF, 2007) generated interest in making the data available for secondary analysis. This data collection contains information on the officer's reasons for initiating a stop, whether the stop led to a summons or arrest, demographic information for the person stopped, and the suspected criminal behavior."
The Global Terrorism Database (GTD) contains information about more than 140,000 terrorist incidents occurring between 1970 and 2014. The data in the GTD are gathered from information gathered through multiple news sources (LaFree, Dugan, & Miller, 2015). In this activity, we will study the extent to which chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons have been used so far. We analyze whether or not their past use fits with our perceptions. Have CBRN weapons been used successfully in the past? Which weapons are more historically dangerous (more fatalities, injuries) in the hands of terrorists? What are the implications of past usage of CBRN weapons compared to other weapons in determining our priorities in counter-terrorism policies?
This is a lesson plan for 16 to 17 year old students that focuses on developing students' understanding of the relative strengths and weaknesses of various representations of real world univariate statistics. Students work in groups to research different visual representations and create a wiki page of their findings.
Calibrated Peer Review (CPR) is a program, for networked computers, that enables frequent writing assignments without any increase in instructor work. In fact, CPR can reduce the time an instructor now spends reading and assessing student writing. CPR offers instructors the choice of creating their own writing assignments or using the rapidly expanding assignment library. If you believe in constructivist learning, writing is the most important tool that you have. But if you have a class of 300 students, grading essays challenges even the true believer. Calibrated Peer Review (CPR)can be used in classes of any size. CPR is based on the model of peer review in science. The student reads a document, either on-line or hard copy, then writes about it. When the student has demonstrated competence as a reviewer, the program delivers three peer documents on for review. The student answers content and style questions and assigns scores. Finally, the student does a self-review. The student grade comes from writing and reviewing. Even though the program is only in its third year, approximately 100,000 students have used it. Although CPR was designed for use in large chemistry classes, experience has shown that it can serve in many other disciplines, as well. Currently, business, chemistry, economics, English, and life science instructors are using CPR in college, graduate and professional, high schools and middle schools. CPR was developed in the Chemistry Department at U.C.L.A. with funding provided by the National Science Foundation and Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
The ARTIST website provides a variety of assessment resources for teaching first courses in statistics. ARTIST's goal is to help teachers assess statistical literacy, statistical reasoning, and statistical thinking in their statistics classes. Registration is required to use assessment materials.
SERJ is a peer-reviewed electronic journal of the International Association for Statistical Education (IASE) and the International Statistical Institute (ISI). SERJ is published twice a year and is free.
SERJ aims to advance research-based knowledge that can help to improve the teaching, learning, and understanding of statistics or probability at all educational levels and in both formal (classroom-based) and informal (out-of-classroom) contexts. Such research may examine, for example, cognitive, motivational, attitudinal, curricular, teaching-related, technology-related, organizational, or societal factors and processes that are related to the development and understanding of stochastic knowledge. In addition, research may focus on how people use or apply statistical and probabilistic information and ideas, broadly viewed.