Reddit for Statistics Class

I love reddit. I really love the sub-reddit r/dataisbeautiful. Various redditors contribute interesting graphs and charts from all over the interwebz.

I leave you to figure out how to use these data visualizations in class. If nothing else, they are highly interesting examples of a wide variety of different graphing techniques applicable to different sorts of data sets. In addition to interesting data visualizations, there are usually good discussions (yes, good discussion in the internet!) among redditors about what is pushing the presented findings.

Another facet of these posts are the sources of the data. There are many examples using archival data, like this chart that used social media to estimate sports franchise popularity,

Users also share interesting data from more traditional sources, like APA data on the rates of Masters/Doctorates awarded over time and user rating data generated by IMDB (here, look at the gender/age bias in ratings of the movie Fifty Shades of Grey).

Other statsy subreddits:

r/samplesize: Here, you can post your own online research projects in order to (hopefully!) up you sample size. You can also work on your own research participation karma by participating in research.

r/HITsWorthTurkingFor: Redditors share links for Amazon's mTurk tasks that are particularly profitable. There is all manner of work available here (not all of it research based), but as mTurk is increasingly popular with academic researchers, I'm adding it to this list. I think this may be a valuable discussion piece if you talk about mTurk in your research methods classes and want to discuss the variables that influence participation (and how this may effect your research) as well as whether or not mTurk is really a random sampling of humanity.

/r/statistics: A place for all of your statistics questions.

/r/dataisugly: The opposite of r/dataisbeautiful. Can be used to teach students how to create good graphs by showing them how not to create good graphs.

Comments

Ways to use funny meme scales in your stats classes

Have you ever heard of the theory that there are multiple people worldwide thinking about the same novel thing at the same time? It is the multiple discovery hypothesis of invention . Like, multiple great minds around the world were working on calculus at the same time. Well, I think a bunch of super-duper psychology professors were all thinking about scale memes and pedagogy at the same time. Clearly, this is just as impressive as calculus. Who were some of these great minds? 1) Dr. Molly Metz maintains a curated list of hilarious "How you doing?" scales. 2) Dr. Esther Lindenström posted about using these scales as student check-ins. 3) I was working on a blog post about using such scales to teach the basics of variables. So, I decided to create a post about three ways to use these scales in your stats classes: 1) Teaching the basics of variables. 2) Nominal vs. ordinal scales. 3) Daily check-in with your students. 1. Teach your students the basics...

Using pulse rates to determine the scariest of scary movies

The Science of Scare project, conducted by MoneySuperMarket.com, recorded heart rates in participants watching fifty horror movies to determine the scariest of scary movies. Below is a screenshot of the original variables and data for 12 of the 50 movies provided by MoneySuperMarket.com: https://www.moneysupermarket.com/broadband/features/science-of-scare/ https://www.moneysupermarket.com/broadband/features/science-of-scare/ Here is my version of the data in Excel format . It includes the original data plus four additional columns (so you can run more analyses on the data): -Year of Release -Rotten Tomato rating -Does this movie have a sequel (yes or no)? -Is this movie a sequel (yes or no)? Here are some ways you could use this in class: 1. Correlation : Rotten Tomato rating does not correlate with the overall scare score ( r = 0.13, p = 0.36). 2. Within-subject research design : Baseline, average, and maximum heart rates are reported for each film. 3. ...

If your students get the joke, they get statistics.

Gleaned from multiple sources (FB, Pinterest, Twitter, none of these belong to me, etc.). Remember, if your students can explain why a stats funny is funny, they are demonstrating statistical knowledge. I like to ask students to explain the humor in such examples for extra credit points (see below for an example from my FA14 final exam). Using xkcd.com for bonus points/assessing if students understand that correlation =/= causation What are the numerical thresholds for probability? How does this refer to alpha? What type of error is being described, Type I or Type II? What measure of central tendency is being described? Dilbert: http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Kill%20Anyone Sampling, CLT http://foulmouthedbaker.com/2013/10/03/graphs-belong-on-cakes/ Because control vs. sample, standard deviations, normal curves. Also,"skewed" pun. If you go to the original website , the story behind this cakes has to do w...

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