This brief video from NPR (they make videos, what?) describes how the CDC will be randomly sampling Atlanta residents to test for COVID-19 antibodies. The efforts hope to provide a better estimate of the spread of the disease. H/t to Sy Islam for sharing this with me. I think you could use this in class as a super-fast example of how we use samples to generalize about larger populations. The CDC is sending out employees to conduct antibody tests on a random sample of Atlanta residents. The tests are meant to show how many people have been infected with the coronavirus. pic.twitter.com/mXqznHUJmV — NPR (@NPR) April 29, 2020

Hi! Here is an easy-to-use review of regression, with a regression example. I posted about using this catty tweet to teach regression previously: Right? Do you see the regression? Every wife has two data points: Year she gets married, and the year she was born...and from that, you can perform a regression to predict when Quaid would actually marry someone who has not been born yet (2052). Well, I decided to make it into a whole Google Slides presentation for this example, with links to data, to use as a regression review during the quarantine. Admittedly, the example is ridiculous, and the sample is far too small to run a reliable regression. That being said, I think the example is vivid and sticks. I also think it does an excellent job of illustrating how the equation can be used to make predictions. Additionally, I genuinely find meaning in helping out my fellow statistics instructors in good times, and doubly so during this challenging semester. Feel free to view my pres...

Here are two good review examples for chi-square, one for goodness-of-fit, and one for the test of independence. Here is my Google Slide presentation, which includes links to data sets for the examples. One features Taco Bell . The other features actual Developmental Psychology research, as featured on NPR . When I use these in class, the students have already been introduced to chi-square, have been walked through examples of both chi-squares, and then they analyze the data on their own using JASP. Y

I hope everyone is hanging in there. Here is a pretty straight forward one-way ANOVA example that is interactive, based on for-real personality psychology research, and interesting. I blogged about this previously but whipped up a Google Slideshow you can download and edit to suit your own teaching. Also, I uploaded data that you can use with your students.  TL:DR- A bunch of researchers gave the NEO to 1.5 million Americans to determine if different regions of the US have different personality trends (see research here ).  Original Study They do. Then Time magazine reported on the study . And the scicomm was beautiful. They accurately described the research AND created a fun interactive portion in which you students can take the NEO-Short Form and be matched with the state that best matches their personality (Hi, I am West Virginia because I'm high in neuroticism and low in openness to new experiences, which are great qualities to have during a pandem...

I apologize in advance if you are pandemiced out. It is just that my brain won't stop seeing stats examples in information related to the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, researchers are looking back at the 1918 Flu Pandemic in order to forecast how social distancing (or lack thereof) will affect mortality rates now. And these patterns, as illustrated by National Geographic, demonstrate different data distribution shapes . The data comes from a reputable source, is scaled to deaths per 100,000 as to allow for comparison, and the distributions are related to very important data. Other lessons your students can learn from this data: This is what good scicomm looks like. Also, sometimes a good data visualization is better than an accurate-yet-filled-with-jargon version of the same information. For instance, much has been shared about NYC vs St. Louis in terms of timing of quarantine. Here is the comparison yet again, but in an easier-to-follow description: There is a ton of...

TL:DR: Imma send my students to YouTube to watch three MythBuster clips that approximately illustrate t-test research designs. Then, they will identify the t-test research design that is illustrated by each of these clips.  More detail. MythBusters is a show that gleefully creates research to test urban legends and random questions that arise in day to day life. The questions that my clips tackle are: a) how badly do people drive when distracted by hands-free cell phones, b) could Indiana Jones have really made it through the chamber at the beginning of Temple of Doom and c) what is faster: Weaving in and out of lanes or staying in the right-hand lane when driving? So, they will watch the clips, and I will ask them questions (they will submit their answers via Google Forms Quiz) to make sure they can tell which sort of t-tests you would use to analyze the data, given research design. Here is the PPT I will use. I've never used this exact clip in class before. I di...

Hello, my friends. We live in strange times. I will try to share everything so that this transition to online education is more manageable. My university is pausing teaching for this week (3/16-3/20), so we can prepare. I've prepared my first lesson. I've used this lesson before. I like this lesson because you can use it with ANY of the inferential statistics taught in Intro Stats. Here is my PPT for the projec t. I used it for an Independent t-test, but you can use it for any test. What you need: A FB account, a way to share a lecture with your students, a way for your students to share ideas about what sorts of variables you can glean from FB. What your students need: A FB account (I suggest you create an extra data set to share with students who don't have one), a way to conduct statistical tests (by hand, calculator, JASP, Excel, R).  Tips:  1. I don't think this is an excellent way to introduce a statistical test, but I think it is a usef...

Psi Chi, the psychology honor society, is sponsoring a fun, free, low-commitment way to help your students (and maybe you?) learn R. I talked with Jordan Wagge, one psychologists spearheading the project (along with John Eldund and April Staples), and my understanding is that there will be multiple cycles of this class, using different data, research questions, and inferential statistics (so, if your students can't do this right now, a new cycle will start Late Spring). Each cycle will run the course of three months. There will be an assignment due in the middle of each month. This class would be great for any graduate school-bound undergraduate. Here is the formal intro from Psi Chi . A good place to get started is this Google Doc that outlines the whole contest and the process you/your students will go through, step by step. Here are all of the materials , hosted on OSF. Also, if you successfully complete it YOU GET A STICKER. And I find that the UGs love stickers. N...

Hi, friends. There is a free, new edited volume that contains 18 terrific chapters of ideas and hints and guidance for teaching undergraduate statistics. Drs. Beyer & Peters but so much work into gathering ideas from great teachers and now we can all enjoy it.  I wrote Chapter 1. In it, I make an argument that we need to teach statistics to our psychology UGs in a way that better matches how they will use the statistics. TL:DR: 4% of psychology UGs get PhDs in psychology. So maybe we should reconsider how and who we are teaching. Download it here:  https://teachpsych.org/resources/Documents/ebooks/love-teaching-undergrad-stats.pdf

If you, or your students, want to know everything there is to know about ANOVA, you can point them towards this free resource: Tabachnick and Fidel's Experimental Designs Using ANOVA. Access it here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k3g7kl2h7u3kkwd/ExperimentalDesignsUsingANOVA.pdf And this is a legit, non-exploitive, non-stolen copy of the book. According to this post from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Facebook group, T&F have decided to share the book freely.

TL:DR: Ameri-centric teaching example ahead: Have your students take this quiz, and the internet will tell them which regions of the US talk the same as them. Use it to teach validity. Longer Version: The NYT created a gorgeous version ( https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html ) of a previously available quiz ( http://www.tekstlab.uio.no/cambridge_survey/ ) that tells the user what version of American English they speak. The prediction is based upon loads and loads of survey data that studies how we talk. It takes you through 25 questions that ask you how you pronounce certain words and which regional words you use to describe certain things. Here are my results: Indeed, I spent elementary school in Northern Virginia, my adolescence in rural Central PA, college at PSU, and I now live in the far NW corner of PA. As this test indeed picked up on where I've lived and talked, I would say that this is a  valid  test based just on my u...

This may or may not interest my Teaching of Statistics crowd, but I've started a new blog filled with amusing, one-off ideas and examples for teaching Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Like this gem about using data to detect bias in workplace staffing. But in Paw Patrol: I'm teaching it this Spring and have realized that while compiling my own ideas for teaching I/O, I might as well share them with everyone as well. You can find the new blog here .

Hi, all- Happy 400th blog post to me! Anyway, here and there, people request my syllabuses. I'm happy to share them. I'm also sort of proud to share them this semester. Per ideas I've seen circulating on Twitter and at conferences, I've made three big changes this year: 1. I made them more visually appealing. Not just for aesthetic's sake, though, but to better organize information. 2. I've included a section that features a) hints for success from past students and b) my hints for success/extra resources. 3. I more directly addressed the fact that our students can face crises during the semester and I am here to help them with their problems. I also included a list of additional resources for assisting students. Thank you to everyone who has every shared their good ideas for improving our syllabuses. Anyway, here are my Honors Psych Stats syllabus and my Online Psych Stats syllabus.