Resource Library

A song to teach the basic idea of Analysis of Variance - comparing the variance between groups to the variance within groups. May be sung to the tune of the classic Christmas song "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (John Frederick Coots and Haven Gillespie). The lyrics were written by Dennis Pearl of Penn State University. Musical accompaniment realization and vocals are by Joshua Lintz from University of Texas at El Paso.

A song that can help launch critical discussion of common impressions about the role of data, sample size, and significance testing. May be sung to the tune of the signature 90s hit "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Nirvana). Lyrics by Lawrence Mark Lesser of University of Texas at El Paso who first published them in the September 2015 issue of Amstat News.

A cartoon that can be used in discussions about sampling plans, the dangers of voluntary sampling, and the importance of human subjects review in carrying out research. The "Dragon sampling" idea was due to Dennis Pearl of Penn State University. The caption came from the participants at a 2015 USCOTS breakout session as part of a caption writing activity facilitated by Dennis Pearl, Larry Lesser, and John Weber. The cartoon was sketched live during a previous session by British cartoonist John Landers with the color version being finished during this second session (see Dragon Sampling I for the caption created during the first session). This is the second of two captions for this cartoon. All Landers copyrighted cartoons on CAUSEweb are free for non-profit educational use.

A cartoon that can be used in discussions about sampling plans and the difficulty of implementing a plan (or in discussions of inclusion and exclusion criteria in an experiment). The "Dragon sampling" idea was due to Dennis Pearl of Penn State University. The caption came from the participants at a 2015 USCOTS breakout session as part of a caption writing activity facilitated by Dennis Pearl, Larry Lesser, and John Weber. The cartoon was sketched live during the session by British cartoonist John Landers (with the color version being finished during a second session). This is the first of two captions for this cartoon. All Landers copyrighted cartoons on CAUSEweb are free for non-profit educational use.

"Our ability to use data effectively to make decisions or understand the world depends on our ability to see patterns and abstract from those patterns." is a quote by Dr. Felicia B LeClere (1958 - ), Senior Fellow at the National Opinion Research Ceenter (NORC) at University of Chicago. The quote is contained in an August 19, 2013 essay "Walking into Big Data" in the web magazine Inside Higher Ed.

A 5-panel gif animation than can be used in discussing setting up null and alternative hypotheses and the concept of a type I error. The idea for the animation was provided by Dr. Karen Banks from Indiana University and received second place in the 2015 A-mu-sing contest. The idea for the final panel of the gif (regarding Type I error) came from the participants at a breakout session on the use of cartoons and songs in teaching statistics at the 2015 U.S. Conference On Teaching Statistics. The cartoons are drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (second of two animations arising from the USCOTS session).

A 5-panel gif animation than can be used in discussing setting up null and alternative hypotheses and the concept of a type I error. The idea for the animation was provided by Dr. Karen Banks from Indiana University and received second place in the 2015 A-mu-sing contest. The idea for the final panel of the gif (regarding Type I error) came from the participants at a breakout session on the use of cartoons and songs in teaching statistics at the 2015 U.S. Conference On Teaching Statistics. The cartoons are drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (first of two animations arising from the USCOTS session).

A song about the use of the range to measure variation. The song may be sung to the tune of "Home on the range" the classic western song based on a poem by Brewster Higley of Smith county Kansas published in 1873 and music by Texas composer David Guion. The lyrics for this parody were written by Professor Lawrence Lesser of The University of Texas at El Paso.

"The key to good decision making is evaluating the available information - the data - and combining it with your own estimates of pluses and minuses." A quote by Brown University economist Emily Fair Oster (1980 - ) that can be used in discussing the use of data in decision making or in discussing the Bayesian idea of updating prior knowledge with data. The quote is contained in an August 9, 2013 essay in the Wall Street Journal written by Dr. Oster.

"Information is the oil of the 21st century, and analytics is the combustion engine." A quote by Peter Sondergaard (1965 - ), senior vice president and global head of Research at Gartner, Inc. The quote may be used in discussing the importance of data and data analytics. The quote came from a speech given by Mr. Sondergaard at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in October, 2011 in Orlando, Florida.