A new way to goof with a y-axis.

My textbook has a feature in every chapter: Dirty Data Alerts. It warns students about ways that data can be manipulated without straight-up lying. I have one Dirty Data Alert dedicated to manipulated y-axes. Like, truncated y-axes. Because that is the way you manipulate a y-axis, right? RIGHT?! Oh, no, there is a new way to manipulate them without lying. Check out this example, pointed out by @SarahStarberry.

Here, the y-axis measures the version number. That's all. Not how good the tool is, or how often it is being used. Just the version number. Like...just wait until I come out with JessChattyTalkTalkBot 8.0 and I destroy all existing competition.

If this idea was helpful, you'll probably enjoy my textbook, Psychological Statistics for Everyone. It's basically this blog, but organized into a semester.

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.

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...

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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