Resource Library

"Psephologist" is a poem by Scottish poet Eveline Pye from Glasgow Caledonin University. The poem was originally published in the April 2015 issue of the Herald. "Psephologist" is about the importance of polling in understanding public opinion. The poem might be used in course discussions about the affect that polls in the media might have on public opinion.

A song to be used in discussions of the problems and challenges with modern polling (e.g. the use of Robo calling contact methods and the very low response rates making weighting to avoid bias more crucial than sampling variability issues). The lyrics were written in 2016 by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University and Lawrence Lesser from University of Texas at El Paso. The song may be sung to the tune of Bob Seger's 1978 hit "Old Time Rock and Roll." Musical accompaniment realization and vocals are by Joshua Lintz from University of Texas at El Paso.

This is a collection of notes that covers many topics typically included in introductory and/or intermediate statistics courses. The notes are in PDF format, and each is followed by a set of exercises (with most answers included). The site also includes some tables and a link to a StatTable calculator.

A sketch by Anastasia Mandel reinterpreting Woman Holding a Balance by Johannes Vermeer (1662-63) with the statistical caption "Sample balancing: "A false balance is abomination to the LORD, but a just weight is his delight.", Proverbs, 11:1" This is part of a collection of sketches by Anastasia Mandel and their accompanying statistical captions discussed in the paper "How art helps to understand statistics" (Model Assisted Statistics and Applications, 2009) by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel in volume 4 pages 313-324. Free to use in classrooms and on course websites.

In this video (which lasts a little over 21 minutes), Oxford mathematician Peter Donnelly reveals the common mistakes humans make in interpreting statistics -- and the devastating impact these errors can have on the outcome of criminal trials.

A webpage in which links are provided to histograms of sample statistics (mean, median, standard deviation, maximum etc.) as a function of sample size. Each time the REFRESH button is clicked a new set of 2000 samples is generated.

A song to stress the importance of modeling in statistical analyses. Sung by Canadian singer Gurdeep Stephens. Lyrics copyright and music performed by Michael Greenacre of Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain. May be sung to the tune of Duke Ellington and Irving Mills' 1932 big band standard "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)"

A cartoon that can be used in teaching about forced choice survey questions. Cartoon by John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea from Dennis Pearl (The Ohio State University). Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites. (note - the Tower of Suurhusen with a tilt angle of 5.19 degrees is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as having the greatest title amongst all leaning towers in the world)

Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cock-sure of many things that were not so. is a quote of American Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841 - 1935). The quote is found in an article written by Justice Holmes in 1918 for the "Harvard Law Review" v. 32, page 40. The quote is also found in the book "Statistically Speaking, a Dictionary of Quotations" by Carl Gaither and Alma Cavazos-Gaither.

Brandon Vaughn from the University of Texas: Some students in statistics classes exhibit behaviors that share characteristics with the established construct of learned helplessness. This webinar will discuss this phenomenon, and detail an instrument recently developed which measures this (HILS: Helplessness in Learning Statistics).