Twitter is my muse. This blog post was inspired by this Tweet:    In a study comparing blood concentrations of caffeine after coffee or energy drink consumption, blood caffeine levels peaked at about 60 minutes in all conditions. Plan accordingly. https://t.co/cWWakGGtHe pic.twitter.com/c5Nn3x3w1f — Kevin Bass (@kevinnbass) November 30, 2021 This study is straightforward to follow. I, personally, think it is psych-friendly because it is about how a drug affects the body. However, it doesn't require much psych theory knowledge to follow this example. Sometimes I'm worried that when we try too many theory-heavy examples in stats class, we're muddying the waters by expecting too much from baby statisticians who are also baby psychologists. Anyway. Here are some things you can draw out of this example: 1. Factors and levels in ANOVA The factor and levels are easy to identify for students. They can also relate to these examples. I wonder if they used Bang energy drinks? They a...

Flowingdata is great. They create lots of exciting data visualizations and share other people's visualizations.  This visualization from Flowingdata is especially significant.   I think it illustrates base rate fallacies beautifully. Moreover, it is applied to a very crucial issue: Immunizations. The base rate fallacy has been used repeatedly to attack the efficacy of vaccines . In particular, instances when vaccinated people catch diseases for which they have been vaccinated. Frequently, such arguments fail to consider base rate data regarding how many more people are vaccinated.  This illustration from Marc Rummy is elegant and straightforward and explains a mathy/sampling/statsy concept without any actual math. I love it.  Also, this illustration has been updated recently with a bit more text to explain everything: Apparently this picture I made that was part of a post 4 months ago recently went viral. Here's a new & improved version that includes the explana...

 OK. I'm proud of this one. I think these are good chi-square examples. And they are about Americans' beliefs about various supernatural beings. Presented with commentary because I couldn't help myself. 1. Supernatural beliefs by age Already. I fully intended to tease my traditional UGs about their beliefs about vampires. Because I do believe that would probably be a significant chi-square...but... ...IS GEN X OK? This survey asks about ghosts, demons, psychics, vampires, and werewolves. What are the "OTHER" this survey is talking about? Aliens? Dolly Parton? I'm intrigued. 2. Werewolves: The Unity Horse. The Unity Wolf? Both Trump and Biden supporters are united in their belief that werewolves do NOT exist.  Anyway. This survey is intriguing. There is a lot of material to work with.  Go read it here .  PS: Hey! If you like this idea and would love a whole stats textbook from the brain of the person who came up with this idea, sign up for more information abou...

There are plenty of stats calculators all over the interwebz. Power calculators, calculators for every test statistic under the sun, etc. BUT: Omni Calculators   I would try to list all of the different calculators, but I just don't have that sort of time on my hands. Descriptives? Sure. Inferential? Why not. Risk? Certainly. For more on the company that has created this calculator, read up on Omni Calculator here . ALSO: There are plenty of non-stats calculators available on the website, with a total of 2,122. 

This blog post was inspired by the brilliant Leslie Berntsen. Her ACT 2021 presentation,  " I'm not a therapist: Mental health education and advocacy for non-clinicians," was about teaching and sharing sound practices in mental health care when you, yourself, are not a mental-health-care-type-psychologist.  Anyway, she had this really great idea about sharing user/trends/etc. data from the Crisis Text Line  (CTL) with students. CTL is a text-based mental health crisis hotline. It is staffed 24/7. I include it on my syllabus as a resource for my struggling students because, unlike my uni's very hard-working counseling center, CTL is always available.  https://www.crisistextline.org/ Why share data from CTL in your stats class? Because you can use it to a) teach a bit of stats, b) introduce students who need this resource to the resource, c) introduce potential volunteers to the service. Here are my ideas for how you could use this data in class. 1. Data visuali...

As I write this blog post, Francis Haugen testifies on Capitol Hill and sheds light on some of Facebook's shady practices. TL;DR- Facebook realizes that its practices are support terrorism.  This led to a public relations blitz from Facebook, including Monika Bickert, who appeared on CNN . Of particular relevance is repeated reference made to an Instagram survey of 40 teens ( here is the documentation I was able to find ). I saw this tweet from Asha Rangappa Reaction about one of those interviews: https://twitter.com/AshaRangappa_/status/1445487820580081674 LOL I had to listen to this twice to make sure I didn’t mishear: This @Facebook exec repeatedly refers to a “survey” of FORTY teen Insta users— as in 4-0 — to support her assertion that the “majority” of teens have a great experience on the platform. For real. Listen to it https://t.co/Ye7ocWcnzG — Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) October 5, 2021 This example packs a lot of punch. It is a good one for the youths because it is ...

Maybe this is the sort of thing you will like. I guarantee you, it is spook-tacular.   https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Gu4VYsYTNJ28RtBf6cNp1xszjo-bfItSHAp-C0PiEbY/edit?usp=sharing