Resource Library

This issue contains articles about steroids in baseball; finding ways to make learning statistics fun; an interview with Joan Garfield about Statistics Education; an introduction to response surface methodology; and a look at the vocabulary used in experimental design.

This issue contains articles on: The advantages and pitfalls of using online panel research, including a discussion of improving data quality and designing the survey research strategically, sequential sampling and testing in a "simple against simple" situation, including a description of Abraham Wald's historical and theoretical contributions to the theory, and R code for running simulations, and the experience and results of an exit poll conducted by two students in Washington D.C. during the 2008 presidential election.

A sketch by Anastasia Mandel reinterpreting Hunters at Rest by Vasily Grigoryevich Perov (1871) with the statistical caption "Capture-recapture statistics." This is part of a collection of sketches by Anastasia Mandel and their accompanying statistical captions discussed in the paper "How art helps to understand statistics" (Model Assisted Statistics and Applications, 2009) by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel in volume 4 pages 313-324. Free to use in classrooms and on course websites.

This is a collection of cases to demonstrate concepts of inferential statistics. Many materials are flash based, which is specifically interesting for young and beginning learners. This resource provides a simple introduction to probability and to Type I and II errors.

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 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 song to aid in discussions about various issues in statistical modeling. Sung by Canadian singer Gurdeep Stephens. Lyrics copyright and music performed by Michael Greenacre of Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain. May be sung to the tune of George and Ira Gershwin's 1927 standard "The Man I Love"

The two worksheets enable instructors to demonstrate how changes in the magnitude of the treatment effects and of the standard deviation of the error term will impact significance in a One-Way ANOVA model. The user specifies three input values that influence the simulation of random observations. ANOVA calculations are provided for the student, leaving the focus on the interpretation of the results. The mirror site (found at http://misnt.indstate.edu/cmclaren/ANOVA_Note.doc) contains an article that can serve as a teaching note to accompany the worksheets.

A webpage in which links are provided to histograms of sample statistics (mean, median, standard deviation, maximum etc.) as a function of sample size. Each time the REFRESH button is clicked a new set of 2000 samples is generated.

Probability plotter and calculator allows students to explore different distributions and their relationships. Interactive dialogue box allows students to change distribution shape and scaling parameters as well as allowing to explore cumulative probabilities. Discrete distributions include the discrete uniform, binomial, and the poisson. Continuous distributions include the uniform, beta, exponential, weibull, gamma, and lognormal distributions. Sampling distributions include the normal, the t-distribution, the chi-square, and the F-distribution.