University of Cambridge's Psychometric Center has used statistics to make make personality predictions based upon an individual's Facebook "likes" . For instance, your likes can be used to create your Big Five personality trait profile. Your students can have their data FB "likes" analyzed at YouAreWhatYouLike.com  as to determine their Big Five traits. After your students complete the FB version of the scale, you could have your students complete a more traditional paper and pencil version of the inventory and discuss differences/similarities/concurrent validity between the two measures. Below, I've included a screen grab of my FB-derived Big Five rating from YouAreWhatYouLike.com. Note: Yes, that is how I score on more traditional versions of the same scale. Generated at YouAreWhatYouLike.com In addition to Big Five prediction, the researchers also used the "like" data to make predictions of other qualities, like sexual orientatio...

Hofstede is a psychology rockstar who studies multiculturalism (specifically, how his cultural dimensions vary from country to country and how this can impact organizations). This page generates bar graphs that illustrate how the two countries you specify vary on his dimensions. Below is a screen grab of the U.S. compared to Brazil along his dimensions. Note: If this all sounds vaguely familiar, it may be because you read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and he discusses Power Distance in the context of the Korean Air safety issues. How could you use this in the classroom? 1) This could be a quick example of the importance of multicultural research (as the Western view of the world/attitudes are not the default setting for humans).  2) A quick way of demonstrating bar graphs. 3) A good example of applied social psychology.  From geert-hofstede.com

Want a good way to waste time when you should be prepping for the semester ahead?  Go generate some stats/research methods memes.  If you are feeling extra generous, please feel free to send them to me so I can share them with the group. Created at memegenerator.co by Jess Hartnett Created at memegenerator.co by Jess Hartnett

Best. Awful. Headline. Ever. T his headline makes it sound like many young women support the sexting, bad-decision-making, former NY representative Anthony Weiner. However, if one takes a moment to read the article, one will learn that the "young women" sampled were recruited from SeekingArrangement.com. A website for women looking for sugar daddies. If you want your brain to further explode, read through the comments section for the article. Everyone is reacting to the headline. Very few people actually read through the article themselves...which provides further anecdotal evidence that most folks can't tell good data from bad (and that part of our job as statistics instructors, in my opinion, is to ameliorate this problem).

Prior to the 2012 presidential election, Pennsylvania attempted to enact one of the toughest voter ID laws in the nation. This law has been kicked up to the courts to examine its legality. One reason that so many people protested the law was because it would make it more difficult for the elderly and the poor to vote (as it would be more difficult for them to obtain the ID required). Here is an NPR story that gives a bit of background on the law and the case in court.   Also, for giggles and grins, here is Jon Stewart's more amusing explanation of the law and why it was struck down prior to the election, including video footage of a PA legislature flat-out stating that the Voter ID law would allow Romney to win the 2012 election. In order to support/raise questions about the impact of the law on the ability to vote, statisticians have been brought in on both sides in order to estimate exactly how disenfranchising this law will be. Essentially, the debate in court centers a...

Gerd "I love heuristics" Gigernezer talking about the misinterpretation of research by the medi a (in particular, misinterpretation of data about oral contraceptives leads to increases in abortions). He argues that such misinterpretation isn't just bad reporting, but unethical.

Here is a basic lesson plan that one could use to teach the hypothesis testing method in a statistics course. I teach in a computer lab but I think it could be modified for a non-lab setting, especially if you use a smart classroom. The lesson involves learning about a company that makes web-based games that improve memory (specifically, I use the efficacy testing the company did to provide evidence that their games do improve memory). Posit Science is a company that makes computer based games that are intended to improve memory. I use material from the company's website when teaching my students about the scientific method. Here is what I do... Property of positscience.com

Hey, nerds. Some big, big nerds generated a bunch of statistical graphs and analyses using content analysis data gleaned from the Tolkien's novels. Teach your students about nerdy, nerdy correlations: Content analysis for positive and negative affect:

Khan Academy has plenty of fair use videos for "learning anything". They have a number of statistics/probability examples in their library. Including the Central Limit Theorem video below (I highlight this one as CLT usually leads to a lot of head scratching in my class).

Andy Field is a psychologist, statistician, and author. He created a funny, Dante's Inferno-themed  web site that contains everything you ever wanted to know about statistics. I know, I know, you're thinking, "Not another Dante's Inferno themed statistics web site!". But give this one a try. Property of Andy Field. I certainly can't take credit for this. Some highlights: 1) The aesthetic is priceless. For example, his intermediate statistics page begins with the introduction, "You will experience the bowel-evacuating effect of multiple regression, the bone-splintering power of ANOVA and the nose-hair pulling torment of factor analysis. Can you cope: I think not, mortal filth. Be warned, your brain will be placed in a jar of cerebral fluid and I will toy with it at my leisure." 2) It is all free. Including worksheets, data, etc. How amazing and generous. And, if you are feeling generous and feel the need to compensate him for the website, ...

If you aren't familiar with cracked.com, it is a website that composes lists. Some are pretty amusing ( 6 Myths About Psychology That Everyone (Wrongly) Believes ,  6 Things Your Body Does Every Day That Science Can't Explain ). An d some are even educational, like "The five most popular ways statistics are used to lie to you" . from cracked.com The list contains good points to encourage critical thinking in your students. Some of the specific points it touches upon: 1) When it is more appropriate to use median than mean. 2) False positives 3) Absolute versus relative changes in amount 4) Probability 5) Correlation does not equal causation And you'll get mad street cred points from undergraduates for using a Cracked list. Trust me.

One way of teaching about margin of error/confidence intervals is via political polling data. From  mvbarer.blogspot.com Here is a good site that has a break down of polling data taken in September 2012 for the 2012 US presidential election. I like this example because it draws on data from several well-reputed polling sites, includes their point estimates of the mean and their margin of errors. This allows for several good examples: a) the point estimates for the various polling organization all differ slightly (illustrating sampling error), b) the margin of errors  are provided, and c) it can be used to demonstrate how CIs can overlap, hence, muddying our ability to predict outcomes from point estimates of the mean. I tend to follow the previous example with this gorgeous polling data from Mullenberg College : This is how sampling is done, son! While stats teachers frequently discuss error reduction via big n , Mullenberg takes it a step further by o...

I have been using Mueller's CROW website for years. It is a favorite teaching resource among my fellow social psychologists , with TONS of well-categorized resources for teaching social psychology. This resource is also useful to statistics/research methods instructors out there as it contains a section dedicated to research design with a sub-section for statistics.