The thing about my way of teaching stats is that my cool, novel examples get old really fast. Like, pop culture is on a thirty-day cycle. Anyway, YEARS ago, 2014 to be exact, I blogged about illustrating bimodal data distributions using baby name data from the Social Security Administration. Specifically, when an older name comes back into vogue, it has a bimodal distribution when you plot time on the X axis. I stand by this example. However, all of the data illustrations come from 2014. When our traditionally aged college students were 6 or 7. Which makes this example feel a little stale. However, here is some data, courtesy of Redditor fevaah , showing old names that are back in vogue through 2025 ! And Eleanor, Violet, Nora, and Hazel are here, illustrating bimodal distributions for a new generation. If you used my old baby-name data, this is a quick, easy refresh for your lectures (or a fun new addition if you didn't). If this idea was help...
I love court cases that hinge on statistics, like these two US Supreme Court cases: Hall vs. Florida, Brown vs. Entertainment Merchants Association. Such examples demonstrate the relevance of what students are learning in our class: in Hall vs. Florida, the margin of error saved a criminal from the death penalty. The majority opinion in Brown vs. Entertainment Merchants Association reiterates that correlation does not equal causation and brings up effect sizes.
A recent case in Florida demonstrated that research about voting and candidate order on ballots can unfairly advantage candidates at the top of the list.
Here is a brief summary from the Miami Herald:
Here are portions of the actual decision from the Election Law Blog. The highlight in the paragraph below in mine, since the primacy effect is also something we talk about in Intro Psych. Also, note the terrific footnote.
How to use in class:
Research methods matter.
Ballot ordering matters.
There are many, many ways to screw with democracy. Everyone needs to keep their dukes up and be prepared to defend democracy.
A recent case in Florida demonstrated that research about voting and candidate order on ballots can unfairly advantage candidates at the top of the list.
Here is a brief summary from the Miami Herald:
 |
| https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article237417779.html |
Here are portions of the actual decision from the Election Law Blog. The highlight in the paragraph below in mine, since the primacy effect is also something we talk about in Intro Psych. Also, note the terrific footnote.
 |
| This footnote is delightful. |
Featured heavily in the decision is Dr. Jon Krosnick of political psychology fame. His corpus of work was used to demonstrate that ballot order matters.
How to use in class:
Research methods matter.
Ballot ordering matters.
There are many, many ways to screw with democracy. Everyone needs to keep their dukes up and be prepared to defend democracy.