Sampling bias example via NASA, Pew Research Center, and Twitter

Today's post is one, small, to-the-point example of sampling bias.

On May 27, 2020, my family and I were awaiting lift-off for the (subsequently grounded) NASA/SpaceX launch. To no one's surprise, I was following NASA on Twitter during the hoopla, and I noticed this Tweet:

https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1265724481009594369

And I couldn't help but think: That is some sampling bias. Admittedly, their sample size is very impressive, with over 54K votes. But this poll went out to a bunch of people who love NASA so much that they follow it on Twitter.

What is a less biased response to this question? As always, Pew Research Center had my back. 58% of Americans responded that they definitely/probably weren't interested in traveling into space:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/06/07/space-tourism-majority-of-americans-say-they-wouldnt-be-interested/

If you want to expand upon this example in class, you could ask your students to Google around for information on the typical Twitter user and whether or not they are representative of the average American. You could also go to the link for the survey and learn more about the exact methodology used by Pew research to gather their data.

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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