Statistics is the art of stating in precise terms that which one does not know. A quote by American Statistician William Henry Kruskal (1919 - 2005) in his article "Statistics, Moliere, and Henry Adams," in "American Scientist Magazine" (1967; vol. 55, page 417).The quote also appears in "Statistically Speaking: A dictionary of quotations" compiled by Carl Gaither and Alma Cavazos-Gaither.
Normality is a myth; there never has, and never will be, a normal distribution. A quote by Irish statistician and econometrician Roy C. Geary (1896 - 1983) found in "Biometrika" volume 34, 1947, page 241.
A joke about the need for students to explain how they arrived at the answers they provide on exams.
Statistically Speaking is a 5 minute 35 second video that can be used in discussing various concepts in descriptive statistics. The video was written, directed, and produced by Cameron W. Hatch and the cast includes (order of appearance) Mala Grewal, Sally Atkinson, Griffin Hatch, Jeff Hatch, Matt Burnham, and Sylvia Burnham.
In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind. A quote from French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur (1822 - 1895) given at a lecture at University of Lille on December 7, 1854.
Song about the properties of Maximum Likelihood Estimation including efficiency, invariance, and asymptotic normality. May sing to the tune of "Let it Be" By Paul McCartney. Recorded June 26, 2009 at the OSU Whisper Room: Larry Lesser, vocals/guitar; Justin Slauson, engineer.
Song about the use of the 5-number summary to describe skewed data as an alternative to the mean and standard deviation. May be sung to the tune of the 1979 song "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor. Lyrics written by Sheila O'Leary Weaver. The song took first place in the song category in the 2007 A-Mu-Sing competition. Musical accompaniment realization are by Joshua Lintz and vocals are by Mariana Sandoval from University of Texas at El Paso.
A cartoon to teach about one difficulty in conducting medical research compared to education research arising from problems in obtaining informed consent from subjects. Cartoon by John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea from Dennis Pearl (The Ohio State University). Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites.
November 23, 2010 Activity Webinar presented by Stacey Hancock, Reed College, Jennifer Noll, Portland State University, Sean Simpson, Westchester Community College, and Aaron Weinberg, Ithaca College, and hosted by Leigh Slauson, Capital University. Extra materials available for download free of charge. Many instructors ask students to demonstrate the frequentist notion of probability using a simulation early in an intro stats course. Typically, the simulation involves dice or coins, which give equal (and known) probabilities. How about a simulation involving an unknown probability? This webinar discusses an experiment involving rolling (unbalanced) pigs. Since the probabilities are not equal, this experiment also allows the instructor to have students think about the concept of fairness within games.
Probability is expectation founded upon partial knowledge. is a quote by George Boole (1815 - 1864) - the English logician and philosopher for whom Boolean logic is named. The quote is found in chapter 16 of his 1853 book "An Investigation of the Laws of Thought". The book can be found on-line through the Gutenberg project at www.gutenberg.org/etext/15114.