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 really, really believe in using non-scientific examples and comparisons to teach statistics. In this post, I will show you how I see comparisons between criminal investigations and scientific investigations. Specifically, after a summer spent going down a true-crime rabbit hole, I think that criminal investigations and court cases are sort of like SEM. 1. Investigators and statisticians are sometimes forced to use tangible evidence to infer about intangible variables and concepts. 2. An evidence board is basically a path diagram, right? See: Don't worry, I made a whole PowerPoint to explain . And maybe you can use the PowerPoint the next time you teach SEM. If this idea was helpful, you'll probably enjoy my textbook, Psychological Statistics for Everyone . It's basically this blog, but organized into a semester.