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Lyrics by John Bailer from Miami University about the value of successful statistical modeling that won an honorable mention in the 2025 A-mu-sing Contest. The song is a parody of the 1972 hit song by Johnny Nash "I Can see Clearly Now" and the vocals on the audio were performed by Kent Peterson from Oxford Presbyterian Church in Miami Ohio.  In using the song for teaching, John suggests that each verse could be connected to a question or two.  Here are examples:

Verse 1:  How does an effective visualization reveal pattern? What types of patterns might emerge? How might such patterns be captured in a model?

Verse 2: What are ways variables are 'engineered' as part of an analysis?

Verse 3: How does the introduction of a confounder in a model potentially impact the estimated coefficients of other variables in a model?

Verse 4: AUC* is one way the predictive quality of a model is described. What are other features of a useful model?

* AUC stands for Area Under the Curve for the Receiver Operator Characteristic

Bridge:  Residuals following a normal distribution are expected for some types of models. What other distributions might be expected? What else might be learned from the residuals?

Verse 5: Why are we more confident with interpolations than extrapolations?

This cartoon caption can be used to discuss the difference between one- and two-sided tests (and why the gym in the cartoon might choose the former).  The cartoon was used in the June 2025 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Steve Wang from Swarthmore College. The cartoon was drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University. 

This cartoon caption can be used in discussing how modern tools in data science might help with drawing inferences from data gathered by nontraditional means.  The cartoon was used in the November 2024 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Jim Brumbaugh-Smith from Manchester University. The cartoon was drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University. 

This cartoon caption can be used in discussing the importance of providing information about the variability associated with estimates of effects.  The cartoon was used as one of two cartoons in the September 2024 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Charlie Smith from North Carolina State University.  The cartoon was drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University.

This cartoon caption is intended to emphasize the theme that whether we're looking at climate data or any other field, recognizing and managing variation is key to drawing meaningful insights from data and making reliable forecasts. The cartoon was used in the October 2023 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Ian Bang, a student at the Friends Seminary in New York City.  The cartoon was drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University.

A joke written by Evan Wimpey from Elder Research, Inc. that took first place in the Joke/Cartoon category of the 2021 A-mu-sing Contest.  The joke may be used in discussing fundamentals of Bayesian inference and to challenge students to describe what it might mean to have a "weak prior" in the situation in the joke.

This poem by Kelly Godwin from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, is a parody of Robert Frost's popular 1915 poem "The Road Not Taken" and took first place in the poetry category of the 2021 A-mu-sing Contest. The poem is designed to facilitate discussions of the advantages of Bayesian inference methodology.

The lyrics for this song were written and the music was created and performed in 2021 by undergraduate student Jonathan F. Spencer from Miami University in Ohio. The song took second place in the song/video category of the 2021 A-mu-sing Contest.  The lyric is designed to stimulate discussion of testing in an unusual situation with a “research question” creating a point alternative, the singers’ “best fit lover,” being compared with a null of “someone else.”

The CI Hammer video is part of a series of musical summary reviews of different statistical and data science topics by Professor Rafael de Andrade Moral from Maynooth University in Ireland, including a set of three that won the grand prize in the 2021 A-mu-sing Contest.

The lyrics reviewing Confidence Intervals and associated learning objectives were written and the video was produced and performed by Dr. Moral, while the music may be sung to the tune of Ghost's 2016 hit “Square Hammer.”

The lyrics and the direction for this video were by high school student Jordyn Gross with acting by the students in Mr. Schlaegel's 2018 AP Statistics course at Burlington Township High School.  The video uses the music from Taylor Swift's 2012 hit song by the same name.  The video earned fifth place in the song/video category of the 2019 A-mu-sing Contest and is designed to discuss the meaning of Type I and Type II errors in hypothesis testing situations.