Summary Statistics

  • Lyric by Dennis Pearl
    may sing to the tune of the KitKat jingle by Michael Levin and Ken Shuldman

    Gimme a break
    Gimme a break
    Break me off the ends of that
    Whole x-bar

    Gimme a break
    Gimme a break
    Break me off the ends of that
    Whole x-bar

    That robust taste
    Is gonna make your day
    And everywhere you go
    You hear the people say

    Gimme a break
    Gimme a break
    Break me off the ends of that
    Break me off the ends of that
    Break me off the ends of that
    Whole x-bar

  •  

    Music and Lyric © 2018 Lawrence M. Lesser 

    When learnin’ ‘bout the mean, we wanna set a high bar;
    Like the symbol for sample mean, we need a high bar!
    More than procedure, here’s what its features are!

    No bigger than the max, no less than the min;
    Never past the max, or less than the min.
    That makes a window x-bar is always in!

    A value that equals 0 is part of the dataset.
    If a value equals 0, it’s still in the dataset,
    And sways calculation of the x-bar you get.

    The mean might not have a value in reality,
    Might not be a data point or value that could be:
    Don’t know no household holdin’ 2.53!

    Lay all the data points on a number line,
    Lay all the data points on a weightless number line:
    You’ll find at x-bar, it’s balanced fine!

    Redistribute values so they’re all the same,
    Level off the values so they’re all the same:
    This fair share value the mean attains.

    Take a deviation of each value from the mean,
    Take a deviation of each value from the mean:
    They all sum to 0: the proof is routine.

    (Repeat Verse 1, changing “here’s” to “we know”)

    Watch the video

  • Variation
    Lyric © 2022 Lawrence M. Lesser
    may be sung to the tune of "Vacation" by the Go-Go's

    Can’t seem to get my mind off of mu
    But I think more is needed to view
    What made it so clear
    Temperatures here
    Are either near 
    40 or 100. 
     
    [CHORUS:]
    Variation in the distribution
    Variation – how the data lays
    Location’s not enough alone
    Variation – it is all around us
    Variation links to chance of things
    Variation – something we need to know
     
    With a shift of values, what’s undone?
    SD and IQR won’t run!
    But a change of scale
    Will make them both sail
    But not percentiles
    Or a z-score (Repeat Chorus)

  • Video explaining the statistical concept of frequency distributions through dance.

    (Teaching notes available to instructors logged into CAUSEweb)

  • Video explaining the statistical concept of variance through dance.

    (Teaching notes available to instructors logged into CAUSEweb)

  • Students make measurements on oranges for use in a unit on descriptive statistics.

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