Soma Roy – Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo

I firmly believe that the key to getting students to appreciate what the discipline of Statistics does is to show them examples – lots of examples of a variety of real studies that investigate real research questions, and have students analyze the data from such studies. And, so in all of my classes I use data from real research studies to help students understand that Statistics is about things that matter, and that it has applications to the real world, which they tend to think of as separate from their statistics class, especially when it is a General Education class. Below I have listed a few strategies I use to give students experience with real data from genuine studies, a few resources where you can find such data and studies, and have also included a few examples of studies I use in class.[pullquote]… I often have to go through many articles before I find something that fits the objective(s) I have in mind. On the plus side, I often find articles that though not suitable for the topic I have in mind at the time, does have other things to offer.[/pullquote] Continue reading →