By Bernhard Klingenberg, Williams College and New College of Florida
Information
Instructors and students are relying more and more on apps to illustrate statistical concepts. I will introduce a whole suite of interactive and freely accessible online web apps published at ArtofStat.com that span the entire curriculum of an intro stats course. These apps can be used for exploratory data analysis, inferential statistics (including resampling-based inference) as well as introducing concepts such as (sampling) distributions, confidence levels or power. Instructors gain a new and modern avenue (these apps run on virtually all devices) of engaging students, both in class or on homework. For instance, one activity I always ask my students to explore via an app is this: "Sophia, running for student body president, has 55% support among the student body. But the participation rate in such elections is extremely low. If only 20% of the student body of 1000 students show up to vote, is it possible that she will not get the majority?" In addition, I will demonstrate one app created specifically for illustrating multivariate thinking, showing how conclusions (such as a positive relationship between educational attainment and crime rate in Florida counties) change when adjusting rather than ignoring a third variable (such as the level of urbanization in such counties). A mobile version of these apps is in the making and may open up new avenues of engaging the next generation of students.