Resource Library

This interactive lecture activity motivates the need for sampling. "Why sample, why not just take a census?" Under time pressure, students count the number of times the letter F appears in a paragraph. The activity demonstrates that a census, even when it is easy to take, may not give accurate information. Under the time pressure measurement errors are more frequently made in the census rather than in a small sample.

This activity makes use of a campus-based resource to develop a "capstone" project for a survey sampling course. Students work in small groups and use a complex sampling design to estimate the number of new books in the university library given a budget for data collection. They will conduct a pilot study using some of their budget, receive feedback from the instructor, then complete data collection and write a final report.

This activity is an example of Cooperative Learning in Statistics. It uses student's own data to introduce bivariate relationship using hand size to predict height. Students enter their data through a real-time online database. Data from different classes are stored and accumulated in the database. This real-time database approach speeds up the data gathering process and shifts the data entry and cleansing from instructor to engaging students in the process of data production. Key words: Regression, correlation data collection, body measurements

Because surveys are increasingly common in the medical literature, readers need to be able to critically evaluate the survey method. Two questions are fundamental: 1) Who do the respondents represent? 2) What do their answers mean? This lecture example discusses survey sampling terms and aspects of interpreting survey results.

This lecture example discusses how two continuous variables relate to one another with a clinical example of the relationship between body mass and fasting blood sugar. It offers three questions to help readers visualize and interpret correlation coefficients.

This lecture example reviews the concept of CIs and their relationship to P values. Tables are provided in pdf format.

This lecture example discusses type I and type II errors as they apply in a clinical setting.

This activity stresses the importance of writing clear, unbiased survey questions. It explore the types of bias present in surveys and ways to reduce these biases. In addition, the activity covers some basics of surveys: population, sample, sampling frame, and sampling method.

A cartoon to teach about the measurement issues of bias, reliability, and validity. 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.

In God we trust, all others bring data. An unsourced quote often attributed to American statistician and quality control pioneer William Edwards Deming (1900-1993). The quote has also been a motto of NASA for several decades.