Researchers at Stanford University used data from the Union Army Veterans of the Civil War (1860-1940), the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1971-1975), and the Stanford Translational Research Integrated Database Environment (2007-2017) to determine that the mean body temperature in men and women has decreased by 0.03 degrees Celsius per birth decade. The reduction in body temperature is a Read More …
Author: sullystats
Frames in Polling
Random-digit-dialing (RDD) is a popular method for selecting people to be in polls. So, the population from which a sample is drawn is anyone with a telephone (because RDD dials both listed and unlisted numbers). A problem with RDD is that of bias as a result of nonresponse.A study by Pew Research compared polling results using random-digit-dialing to the use Read More …
StatCrunch Featured Data Sets
In August, 2018, Pearson posted a wide variety of featured data sets that you can use to illustrate a variety of statistical concepts in your class. Each data set on this site has a thorough description of the data and provides a source along with descriptions of each variable. I would like to focus on the “California Home Prices, 2009” Read More …
Learning Cataltyics
George Woodbury (@georgewoodbury) and I have written a Learning Catalytics course to accompany Interactive Statistics 2/e. I started classes this week and immediately started using the program in my flipped class. The level of engagement from my students is enormous and peer-to-peer instruction is taking place. This has increased the level of understanding of my students and created a dynamic Read More …
Reproducibility of Research
The article below discusses how much of the scientific research that folks in the media, the general population, and other “stake-holders” is flawed due to the fact that the results cannot be reproduced. This is a great illustration of ethics in statistical research. This could be used to formulate a classroom discussion about the ability to replicate research. How Bad Read More …
Question Wording in Polls
The folks at Pew Research have a video that explains how they word their questions so that they are clear and neutral. Worth a watch!
Beware the Lurking Variable
I just completed the discussion on correlation and regression with my Introductory Statistics students. One of the recommendations within the new GAISE outline is to introduce students to multivariate analysis. A classic application of this practice is the SAT score versus teacher salary data. This data may be found by joining a group I created in StatCrunch titled “SullyStats”. To Read More …
The General’s Dilemma
Today I am going to do “The General’s Dilemma” activity in my Intro Stats class. I am teaching completely randomized designs, so this is a great opportunity to illustrate the methodology behind this experimental design with this activity. This data will be used to introduce the inferential methods of comparing two independent proportions using randomization methods. Feel free to use Read More …
The Story of Guinness
Pricenomics is a nice website to visit periodically for interesting studies and articles that you may find relevant or useful for your stats class. For example, here is a link to an older article about the history of William Gosset and his research at Guinness.
Fooled by Randomness
Here is a link to a short article on randomness. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-08/how-not-to-be-fooled-by-randomness