The Pudding's Words Against Strangers: A way to break up your z-score lecture.

Ok. Only some examples have to be profound. Sometimes, an example can break up a dry lesson like z-scores. 

This is my favorite z-score example. Ever.

This current post may become my second favorite.

The Pudding's Words Against Strangers is a game with four minute-long rounds. Each round asks for a type of word. Adjectives containing the letter "m." Verbs that contain an "r" and are precisely five letters long. That sort of prompt. Then you have one minute to type in as many of these words as possible. I recommend playing this on a computer, not a phone. If you are over 40. You are competing against one person on the internet. 

After you play, your record is displayed as either:

a) your over/under against the opponent

b) your percentile score for everyone on the internet.

Here is how I will use it in class. My students get into other games I've worked on in my classes (Guess the Correlation). I plan on asking my students to play this game, view their percentile scores, and determine their z-scores. I will also ask why my percentile scores are higher for games where I had a smaller lead over my opponent. For example, on the bottom row, my 27-point lead put me in the 48th percentile, while on a different day, my 23-point lead put me in the  70th percentile. Also, why can't they share the percentile score on the day of a given contest?

This is a minor, elaborate example. But my students look so sad when they are using the z-table. So sad. But they need to get a sense of it to understand NHST, so we have to cover it. This will make it marginally less tedious.