This article describes a collaborative project across three institutions to develop, implement, and evaluate a series of tutorials and case studies that highlight fundamental tools of data science--such as visualization, data manipulation, and database usage--that instructors at a wide-range of institutions can incorporate into existing statistics…

Estimating the efficacy of different instructional modalities, techniques, and interventions is challenging because teaching style covaries with instructor, and the typical student only takes a course once. We introduce the individualized treatment effect (ITE) from analyses of personalized medicine as a means to quantify individual student…

The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics have a widespread impact on children's statistical learning opportunities. The Grade 6 standards are particularly ambitious in the goals they set. In this critique, experiences helping children work toward the Grade 6 Common Core statistics expectations are used in conjunction with previous research…

Because of their efficiency and ability to keep many other factors constant, twin studies have a special appeal for investigators. Just as with any teaching dataset, a "matched-sets" dataset used to illustrate a statistical model should be compelling, still relevant, and valid. Indeed, such a "model dataset" should meet the…

In this paper, we report a case study that illustrates the importance in interpreting the results from statistical tests, and shows the difference between practical importance and statistical significance. This case study presents three sets of data concerning the performance of two brands of batteries. The data are easy to describe and…

This paper shows how the application of simple statistical methods can reveal to students important insights from climate data. While the popular press is filled with contradictory opinions about climate science, teachers can encourage students to use introductory-level statistics to analyze data for themselves on this important issue in public…

The purpose of this research study was to learn about students' conceptions concerning the line of best fit just prior to their introduction to the topic. Task-based interviews were conducted with thirty-three students, focused on five tasks that asked them to place the line of best fit on a scatterplot and explain their reasoning throughout the…

Engaging students in active learning can enhance their understanding and appreciation of a subject such as statistics. Classroom activities and projects help to engage students and further promote the learning process. In this paper, an activity investigating the influence of population size and wealth on the medal counts from the 2012 London…

In this article, we present a data set and case study exercise that can be used by educators to teach a range of statistical concepts including Simpson's paradox. The data set and case study are based on a real-life scenario where there was a claim of discrimination based on ethnicity. The exercise highlights the importance of performing rigorous…

This paper discusses common approaches to presenting the topic of skewness in the classroom, and explains why students need to know how to measure it. Two skewness statistics are examined: the Fisher-Pearson standardized third moment coefficient, and the Pearson 2 coefficient that compares the mean and median. The former is reported in statistical…

This paper describes three spreadsheet exercises demonstrating the nature and frequency of type I errors using random number generation. The exercises are designed specifically to address issues related to testing multiple relations using correlation (Demonstration I), t tests varying in sample size (Demonstration II) and multiple comparisons…

In this paper we present time series data collected from a cafe run by business students at a Midwestern public university. The data were collected over a ten-week period during the spring semester of 2010. These data can be used in introductory courses to illustrate basic concepts of time series and forecasting, including trend, seasonality, and…

In this paper we present an application of statistics using real stock market data. Most, if not all, students have some familiarity with the stock market (or at least they have heard about it) and therefore can understand the problem easily. It is the real data analysis that students find interesting. Here we explore the building of efficient…

Textbooks and websites today abound with real data. One neglected issue is that statistical investigations often require a good deal of "cleaning" to ready data for analysis. The purpose of this dataset and exercise is to teach students to use exploratory tools to identify erroneous observations. This article discusses the merits of such…

Bacteria are cultured in medical laboratories to identify them so patients can be treated correctly. The tryptone dataset contains measurements of bacteria counts following the culturing of five strains of "Staphylococcus aureus". It also contains the time of incubation, temperature of incubation and concentration of tryptone, a nutrient. The…