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Showing posts from December, 2022

Our World in Data's deep dive into human height. Examples abound.

Stats nerds: I'm warning your right now. This website is a rabbit hole for us, what with the interactive, customizable data visualizations. Please don't click on the links below if you need to grade or be with your kids or drive.  At a recent conference presentation, I was asked where non-Americans can find examples like the ones I share on my blog. I had a few ideas (data analytic firms located in other countries, data collected by the government), but wanted more from my answer.  BUT...I recently discovered this interactive from Our World in Data. It visualizes international data on human height, y'all  with so many different examples throughout. I know height data isn't the sexiest data, but your students can follow these examples, they can be used in a variety of different lessons, and you can download all of the data from the beautiful interactive charts. 1. Regressions can't predict forever. Trends plateau.  I'm using this graph to as an example of how a r...

Caffeine and Calories: An example of a non-linear relationship

Not all of our class examples should reject the null. Sometimes, you just need some non-significant data, small effect size data that doesn't detect a linear relationship. Such is the linear relationship between the number of calories and mg of caffeine in these 29 different treats provided by InformationIsBeautiful. InformationIsBeautiful provides that data , as do I .

The Pudding's Words Against Strangers: A way to break up your z-score lecture.

Ok. Only some examples have to be profound. Sometimes, an example can break up a dry lesson like  z -scores.  This is my favorite z -score example . Ever. This current post may become my second favorite. The Pudding's Words Against Strangers is a game with four minute-long rounds. Each round asks for a type of word. Adjectives containing the letter "m." Verbs that contain an "r" and are precisely five letters long. That sort of prompt. Then you have one minute to type in as many of these words as possible. I recommend playing this on a computer, not a phone. If you are over 40. You are competing against one person on the internet.  After you play, your record is displayed as either: a) your over/under against the opponent b) your percentile score for everyone on the internet. Here is how I will use it in class. My students get into other games I've worked on in my classes ( Guess the Correlation ). I plan on asking my students to play this game, view their...

YEET!, or why you should always check your scatter plot

 I sneak attack my students with this correlation example. I ask them to analyze this data as a correlation and create a report describing their data. This is what the data looks like: I'll be honest, I mostly do this for my own amusement. HOWEVER: It does demonstrate that scatter plots are helpful when making sure that a correlation analysis/scatter plot may contain a non-linear relationship (see: Datasaurus ). If you want to make your own silly scatter plot for data analysis, I recommend Robert Grant's DrawMyData website for doing so.