Resource Library

In this free online video program, students will learn that "statistics can be used to evaluate anecdotal evidence. This program distinguishes between observational studies and experiments and reviews basic principles of design including comparison, randomization, and replication. Case material from the Physician's Health Study on heart disease demonstrates the advantages of a double-blind experiment."

In this free online video program, students will learn that "causation is only one of many possible explanations for an observed association. This program defines the concepts of common response and confounding, explains the use of two-way tables of percents to calculate marginal distribution, uses a segmented bar to show how to visually compare sets of conditional distributions, and presents a case of Simpson's Paradox. The relationship between smoking and lung cancer provides a clear example."

In this free online program, "students will see how the computer can graph multivariate data and various ways of presenting it. The program concludes with an example of a study of environmental stresses in the Chesapeake Bay." This individual video is accessed by scrolling down to the "Individual Program Descriptions - 10. Multidimensional Data Analysis" and click the "VOD" icon at the top-right of the description.

In this free online video program, "students will learn to derive and interpret the correlation coefficient using the relationship between a baseball player's salary and his home run statistics." The students will then "discover how to use the square of the correlation coefficient to measure the strength and direction of a relationship between two variables. A study comparing identical twins raised together and apart illustrates the concept of correlation."

This free online video program offers topics that "include linear growth, least squares, exponential growth, and straightening an exponential growth curve by logic. A study of growth problems in children serves to illustrate the use of the logarithm function to transform an exponential pattern into a line. The program also discusses growth in world oil production over time." This individual video is accessed by scrolling down to the "Individual Program Descriptions - 7. Models for Growth" and click the "VOD" icon at the top-right of the description.

In this free online video program, "students will advance from histograms through smooth curves to normal curves, and finally to a single normal curve for standardized measurement, as this program shows ways to describe the shape of a distribution using progressively simpler methods. In a lesson on creating a density curve, students also learn why, under steadily decreasing deviation, today's baseball players are less likely to achieve a .400 batting average." This individual video is accessed by scrolling down to the "Individual Program Descriptions - 4. Normal Distributions" and click the "VOD" icon at the top-right of the description.

With this free online video program, "students will see how key characteristics in the distribution of a histogram - shape, center, and spread - help professionals make decisions in such diverse fields as meteorology, television programming, health care, and air traffic control. Through a discussion of the advantages of back-to-back stem plots, this program also emphasizes the importance of seeking explanations for gaps and outliers in small data sets." This individual video is accessed by scrolling down to the "Individual Program Descriptions - 2. Picturing Distributions" and click the "VOD" icon at the top-right of the description.

This free online video program uses historical anecdotes and contemporary applications to introduce the series which "explores the vital links between statistics and our everyday world. The program also covers the evolution of the discipline."

This laboratory introduces students to the basics of the Minitab software. Students make use of a basic example (water consumption and temperature) to introduce students to manipulation of data, calculation of descriptive statistics, creation of histograms, boxplots and scatterplots. Students are asked to hand in the results they have produced. Accompanying documents give model solutions.

This material is a detailed exercise for students in introductory statistics. Students are asked to collect a random sample of data from a real estate website; conduct descriptive statistics (including confidence intervals); and write a report summarizing their dataset. The primary learning goals are to teach students 1) how to obtain a random sample; 2) how to interpret confidence intervals; 3) how to simulate and interpret a sampling distribution; and 4) how to communicate descriptive statistics.