Bella the Waitress: A fun hypothesis testing example.

Waitress Bella is on TikTok. She shares her beach looks and hauls, like plenty of other influencers. Recently, though, shared a series of TikToks that have a home in our statistics and research methods classes.

Bella had a hypothesis. She suspected that certain hairstyles influenced her customers to tip her more.

So Bella tested her hypothesis over a series of within-subject, n = 1 experiments at work (Bella, 2022a, Bella, 2022b, Bella, 2022c)

Screen shot of Ella The Scientist/Waitress

This isn't a pre-registered paper with open data, but I think this could be a good discussion piece in a research methods or statistics class.

A comment from Bella's TikTok, in which a viewer tells her to put her data in a spreadsheet.

I swear that Kate isn't my burner account.

If you really, really wanted to test this hypothesis properly, what would that research look like?

1) What external factors influence tips (day of the week, time of day, etc.)?

2) What factors influence reactions to waitstaff (gender, attractiveness, alcohol)?

3) Would you use a within or between research design to study this (different waitstaff with different hair, the same person with different hairstyles)?

4) Create a mocked-up spreadsheet. For example, how would you code for hairstyle (a chance to review scales of measurement)? Day of the week? Tip?

5) Have your students write a testable, formal hypothesis for the hairstyle:tip question.

6) Replication is essential. What exact hairstyles would you need to test?

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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