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MOAR GULL DATA!! Also, an actual independent t test and a conceptual factorial ANOVA.

TL;DR: Birds fly away from men a bit sooner than they fly away from women. Full stop. Here is the  original article,  and here is a write-up from  Nautilus . I love bird research. I'll get into why below. For now, let me show you how to use this example to teach three different lessons in a stats class. 1. Independent t test example with a data set The researchers shared their data. The researchers didn't analyze this data with a t test. But they did share this data visualization that looks a whole lot like one: Damn, I love the new trend of the box/violin/jitter plot. FYI: Researcher gender/the IV is labeled "gender," and how far the birds were before they flew away/the DV is labeled "FID" (flight initiation distance). Also, I love this example because the data violate the assumption of equal variance and provide a case for discussing Welch's test. 2. Conceptual example for Factorial ANOVA This example pairs well with a  previous blog post  featuring ...

Using GenAI to generate teachable data sets (here, an independent t test)

Two things I love to use when teaching stats are: 1)  Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) visual abstracts . I've blogged about them before. 2) Useful tools to generate pretend data sets that mimic real data, and use those pretend data sets to teach. See: Richard  Landers '  and Andrew Luttrell 's websites. So, I was delighted when I saw this recently posted visual abstract about  Ewing-Cobbs et al. (2026) research on using a specific CBT program to reduce stress in children following a traumatic physical injury .  https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2848163 I have a new  example of an independent  t  test  for class. Yay! And I teach tons of future nurses/PAs, so it is doubly applicable. However, the authors stated that the data wasn't immediately available. Also, once it is available, they (very reasonably) want to track their data sharing. Meaning that even if I could get their data, I shouldn't be s...

Young adult suicide is down, as demonstrated by regression.

This is an article about a very sensitive topic, but it is also a hopeful article (young adult suicide seems to be on the decline in the US, and there is reason to believe that it is due to the introduction of the 988 hotline .) Here is a  link to the original research study published in JAMA Network , and here is a link to  Scientific American's write-up on the research . In my class, I emphasize that regression has a lot in common with correlation, but adds prediction. I emphasize it so much that I used it in the name of my regression chapter in my textbook . As such, I was delighted to find this  excellent, psychology-related example of how past data was used to predict the future. But the future is the present? And the predicted data lives in an alternative timeline where the 988 mental health crisis hotline never existed in America. Anyway, TL;DR: Young adult suicide is on the decline (hooray!!) in America, and this research a) uses fancy regression to demonstrate th...