Ben Jones' NFL player descriptive statistics and data distributions.

This is a fun question perfect for that first or second chapter of every intro stats text. The part with data distributions. And it works for either the 1) beginning of the Fall semester and, therefore, football season or 2) the beginning of the Spring semester and, therefore, the lead-up to the Superbowl.

Anyway, Ben Jones tweeted a few bar chart distributions that illustrate different descriptive statistics for NFL players.

https://twitter.com/DataRemixed/status/1022553248375304193

He, kindly, provided the answers to his quiz.

How to use it in class:
1) Bar graphs!
2) Data distributions and asking your students to logic their way through the correct answers...it makes sense that the data is skewed young. Also, it might surprise students that very high earners in the NFL are outliers among their peers.
3) Distribution shapes: Bimodal because of linebackers. Skewed because NFL players run young and have short careers. Normal data for height because even with the higher-than-average average, it is still normal.
4) Descriptive statistics are presented as averages in the first Tweet. Is mean the best way to describe this data, especially the skewed data? Why or why not?

Ways to use funny meme scales in your stats classes

Have you ever heard of the theory that there are multiple people worldwide thinking about the same novel thing at the same time? It is the multiple discovery hypothesis of invention . Like, multiple great minds around the world were working on calculus at the same time. Well, I think a bunch of super-duper psychology professors were all thinking about scale memes and pedagogy at the same time. Clearly, this is just as impressive as calculus. Who were some of these great minds? 1) Dr. Molly Metz maintains a curated list of hilarious "How you doing?" scales. 2) Dr. Esther Lindenström posted about using these scales as student check-ins. 3) I was working on a blog post about using such scales to teach the basics of variables. So, I decided to create a post about three ways to use these scales in your stats classes: 1) Teaching the basics of variables. 2) Nominal vs. ordinal scales. 3) Daily check-in with your students. 1. Teach your students the basics...

Leo DiCaprio Romantic Age Gap Data: UPDATE

Does anyone else teach correlation and regression together at the end of the semester? Here is a treat for you: Updated data on Leonardo DiCaprio, his age, and his romantic partner's age when they started dating. A few years ago, there was a dust-up when a clever Redditor r/TrustLittleBrother realized that DiCaprio had never dated anyone over 25. I blogged about this when it happened. But the old data was from 2022. Inspired by this sleuthing, I created a wee data set, including up-to-date information on his current relationship with Vittoria Ceretti, so your students can suss out the patterns that exist in this data.

Logical Fallacy Ref Meme

So, I love me some good statsy memes. They make a brief, important point that sticks in the heads of students. I've recently learned of the Logical Fallacy Ref meme. Here are a couple that apply to stats class:

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