This activity uses Microsoft Excel to estimate the population variance of grouped data two ways: the variance within a group and the variance between groups. This activity accompanies Section 7.3 of Data Matters.
The dataset described in this article contains information on 345 plays on an electronic slot machine and the prize for each. This data can be used to illustrate parametric bootstrapping and tests of independence for two and three-way contingency tables involving random zeroes. Key Words: Simulation; Elementary probabilities.
This article describes a dataset containing energy use data for single-family homes and monthly weather data in the Boston area over a seven year period. The data can help illustrate concepts like central tendency, dispersion, time series analysis, correlation, simple and multiple regression, and variable transformations. Key Words: measurement; forecasting.
This article describes a dataset containing information on bacterium culturing. Students can use graphical methods, one-way and two-way ANOVA, and multiple polynomial regression to estimate the optimal conditions for bacteria growth. Key Words: Analysis of variance; Exploratory data analysis; Interactions; Optimisation; Outlier.
This article describes a dataset containing information on economic class of passengers and mortality rates from the sinking of the Titanic. The dataset can be used to foster statistical thinking by giving students the data and asking them to determine the source.
This article describes a dataset on life expectancies, densities of people per television set, and densities of people per physician in various countries of the world. The example addresses correlation versus causation and data transformations. Key Word: Prediction.
This article addresses a dataset on public school expenditures and SAT performance. Key Words: Multiple regression; Omitted variable bias; Partial correlation; Scatterplot.
This article describes a dataset on the readability of booklets about cancer and the reading levels of patients with cancer. Students should be familiar with scales of measurement, data reduction, measuring center, constructing and interpreting displays, and reaching conclusions in real problems. Key Words: Ordinal data, Means, Medians, Histograms
This dataset contains a number of variables like birth rate, death rate, life expectancy, and Gross National Product for 97 countries. Suggested activities are geared toward non-mathematicians and include exploratory graphical analyses to answer several central questions. Key words: boxplot, scatterplot, population growth
This article describes a dataset of days in office of US Presidents with outliers that are not mistakes or unusually high or low observations. The data illustrate that outliers need not be errors but could be particularly interesting cases and that data displays may differ in their ability to reveal interesting data structure. Key Words: Inliers; Interpretation in context.
