Resource Library

A game for the active learning of concepts in experimental design and hypothesis testing in the one sample, two-sample and matched pairs situation. Memorathon is an on-line game in which a person is expected to repeat a sequence of buttons provided by an electronic device. Each time you successfully repeat the given sequence of buttons, the sequence gets longer. The challenge is to remember as long a sequence as possible. Cognitive psychologists test short-term memory using serial recall, which evaluates the ability of people to recall information in the specified order in which it was presented. Measuring how many items a subject can remember in order without an error, called memory span, is also studied. The Memorathon Game is an example of serial recall and memory span. This on-line game provides students the opportunity to design multiple versions of the Memorathon Game in order to test which variables have the largest effect on memory. You can leave all the variables blank when you are simply trying out the game, however, if you want to find your score in the database of results, input any specific course ID and student ID. Memorathon is part of the Stat2Labs collection at Grinnell College which includes instructor notes and student handouts.

A quote to aid in discussing the ideas of adaptive experimental designs. The quote is by Statistician, and pioneer in adaptive design, Nancy Flournoy (1947 - ) from her 2015 interview by William Rosenberger in Statistical Science: "A Conversation with Nancy Floury."

A quote that might help in a discussion of the value of observational over experimental when the Hawthorne effect is important. The quote is by American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-1978). The quote is found in her book Blackberry Winter (1972).

A cartoon to be used in discussing the value of stratified sampling (or blocking in experiments) with diverse populations. The cartoon was used in the January 2017 CAUSE cartoon caption contest (see "The Elevator I" for the cartoon with the winning caption). This caption is a shortened version of a caption submitted anonymously to the contest. The cartoon was drawn by British cartoonist John Landers based on an idea from Dennis Pearl of Penn State University.

A song to be used in discussing experimental design and the importance of control, replication, randomization, and blocking. The song was written by Laura Krajewski, an undergraduate student at University of Toronto, Mississauga and took first place in the 2015 A-mu-sing contest. May be sung to the tune of "I Love You Will Still Sound the Same" by Oh Honey.

A cartoon for teaching about using the t-distribution for inference when the standard deviation is unknown. The cartoon was created by Karen Banks from University of Indiana using the software at www.bitstrips.com. The cartoon also won a prize in the CAUSE 2013 A-Mu-sing contest.

A song that reviews several statistical topics written by University of Texas at El Paso professor Lawrence M. Lesser. The song is a parody of "We Are the Champions" written by Freddy Mercury that was popularized by the British rock group Queen in their 1977 Album "ewe of the World."

If the experiments be quite simple the question may be without great importance; but when their requirements as to time or expenditure come into account the problem arises, how the observations should be chosen in order that a limited number of them may give the maximum amount of knowledge. is a quote by Danish Statistician Kirstine Smith (1878 - 1939). The quote appears in the introduction to her 1918 article on optimal experimental design in the journal Biometrika (the first such article in the literature).

I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians is a quote from American economist Hal R. Varian (1947 -) quoted in an August 5, 2009 "New York Times" article "For Today's Graduate, Just One Word: Statistics," written by reporter Steve Lohr. The article may be found online at www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/technology/06stats.html

A joke that might be used in discussing correlation - especially in health studies. The joke is adapted from a joke told by comedic magician Omar Covarrubias. The revised joke was written by Larry Lesser, University of Texas at El Paso, for use in the statistics classroom.