Resource Library

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.

The only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself is a quote attributed to former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965). However scholars at the Churchill Centre (www.winstonchurchill.org) can not find this quote in any of Winston Churchill's books, articles, or speeches.

This online, interactive lesson on the Poisson process provides examples, exercises, and applets. Specific topics include the exponential distribution, gamma distribution, Poisson distribution, splitting a Poisson process, analogy with Bernoulli trials, and higher dimensional Poisson processes.

This site has Youtube video tutorials and screen capture tutorials about how to make graphical displays and perform statistical tests using JMP.

This online textbook provides information on the statistical analysis of nutritional data. Techniques covered include data cleaning, descriptive statistics, histograms, graphics, scatterplots, outlier identification, regression and correlation, confounding, and interactions. Each chapter includes exercises with real data and self-tests to be used with SPSS.

This activity guides students through the process of checking the validity of data, performing summary analysis, constructing box plots, and determining whether significant differences exist. The data comes from a study of mineral levels in older adults and is available in Minitab, Excel, SAS, and text formats.