Design of Experiments

  • May 26, 2009 Activity webinar presented by Dennis Pearl, The Ohio State Unversity, and hosted by Leigh Slauson, Otterbein College. This webinar describes a computer lab activity using the Flash-based applet at www.causeweb.org/mouse_experiment to teach key principles regarding the value of random assignment. These include: 1) how it helps to eliminate bias when compared with a haphazard assignment process, 2) how it leads to a consistent pattern of results when repeated, and 3) how it makes the question of statistical significance interesting since differences between groups are either from treatment or by the luck of the draw. In this webinar, the activity is demonstrated along with a discussion of goals, context, background materials, class handouts, and assessments.
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  • A sketch by Anastasia Mandel reinterpreting "Mont Sainte-Victoire" by Paul Cezanne (1898) with the statistical caption "A skewed distribution, but the same mountain (always look at things from different angles)." This is part of a collection of sketches by Anastasia Mandel and their accompanying statistical captions written by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel that took first place in the cartoon & art category of the 2009 A-Mu-sing contest sponsored by CAUSE. The collection and their accompanying statistical captions discussed in the paper "How art helps to understand statistics" (Model Assisted Statistics and Applications, 2009) by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel in volume 4 pages 313-324. Free to use in classrooms and on course websites.
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  • A sketch by Anastasia Mandel reinterpreting "Field with Flowers" by Vincent Willem van Gogh (1883) with the statistical caption "Experimental Design, decades before Fisher." This is part of a collection of sketches by Anastasia Mandel and their accompanying statistical captions written by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel that took first place in the cartoon & art category of the 2009 A-Mu-sing contest sponsored by CAUSE. The collection and their accompanying statistical captions discussed in the paper "How art helps to understand statistics" (Model Assisted Statistics and Applications, 2009) by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel in volume 4 pages 313-324. Free to use in classrooms and on course websites.
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  • The idea that the examination of a relatively small number of randomly selected individuals can furnish dependable information about the characteristics of a vast unseen universe is an idea so powerful that only familiarity makes it cease to be exciting Is a quote from American Educational Statistician Helen Mary Walker (1891 - 1983). Helen Walker was the first women to serve as the president of the American Statistical Association and this quote is from her December 27, 1944 presidential address at the 104th annual meeting of the ASA in Washington, D.C. The full address may be found in the "Journal of the American Statistical Association" (1945; vol. 40, #229 p. 1-10).

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  • A cartoon to teach the idea that sampling variability depends on the size of the sample, and not on the size of the population (as long as the sample is a small part of the population). Cartoon drawn by British cartoonist John Landers based on an idea from Dennis Pearl. Free to use in the classroom and for course websites.

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  • A cartoon to teach about the use of a placebo to better control experimental studies. Drawn by British cartoonist John Landers based on an idea by Dennis Pearl. Free to use in the classroom or on course websites.

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  • A cartoon to teach about the need to think carefully about the assumptions underlying a statistical model (also uses the idea that you can multiply chances for independent events to find the chance that they all occur). Drawn by British cartoonist John Landers based on an idea from Dennis earl. Free to use in the classroom and on course websites.

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  • A cartoon to teach about issues in designing a well-controlled experiment. 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.

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  • The statistician who supposes that his main contribution to the planning of an experiment will involve statistical theory, finds repeatedly that he makes his most valuable contribution simply by persuading the investigator to explain why he wishes to do the experiment, by persuading him to justify the experimental treatments, and to explain why it is that the experiment, when completed, will assist him in his research. A quote from American statistician, and founder of the North Carolina State University Department of Statistics, Gertrude Cox (1900-1978). The quote is from a speech delivered at the Department of Agriculture in Washington D.C. on January 11th, 1950. The quote also appears in Chapter 1 of W.E. Deming's 1960 book "Sample Design in Business Research".

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  • For the biologist who doubts an old hypothesis or wishes to test out a new one, there is the biological laboratory. There, under conditions over which he can exercise the most rigid control, he can vary the light, the air, the food, which his plants or his animals receive, from the moment of birth throughout their lifetime. Keeping all the conditions but one constant, he can make accurate measurement of the effect of the one. This is the ideal method of science, the method of the controlled experiment, through which all hypotheses may be submitted to a strict objective test. ... Unfortunately such methods of experiment are denied to us when our materials are humanity and the whole fabric of a social order. This is a quote from American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-1978) from the introduction to the 1973 edition of her 1929 book "Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization".

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