A 2020 cartoon illustrating the idea of heteroscedasticity (non-constant variance) that might be used to start a discussion on the important of the constant variance of errors in making inferences from regression models. The cartoon was used in a 2021 Teaching Statistics paper "Statistical edutainment that lines up and fits," by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University and Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso.
Regression to the Mean is a 2009 poem by Andrew Porter of Wirral, England. The poem can be used in teaching about regression to the mean and the regression fallacy. Free for use in non-profit educational settings. A video featuring the poem being read aloud is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D66I36fksZA
A quick "hands on" activity for an in-class experience of data collection as a simple linear regression example where students predict the time needed for a human chain of hand squeezes to make a full circuit as a function of number of people in the chain. The lesson plan secondary school lesson plan adapted from Cynthia Lanius’ hand squeeze activity by Bo Brawner at Tarleton State University.
A pun to familiarize students with Anscombe's Quartet - the group of 4 data sets with the same means, standard deviations, correlations, and regression lines for X and Y that were produced by British statistician Frank Anscombe in a 1973 paper in the American Statistician. The joke was written in 2016 by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso. This joke should be used in a written form since students will not "get" the joke if they have never heard of Anscombe's Quartet - the value for teaching coming from having them look it up. Alternatively, it can be used in an oral presentation following an activity on this topic.
A cartoon using a pun on the need for a key in a graph, and a way to support a discussion of the importance of properly labelling any graphical display. The cartoon was used in the March 2020 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Jason Hu, a student at Strath Haven High School in Pennsylvania. 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 cartoon designed to support a discussion of using dummy variables to code for categories of a categorical variable in a regression model (e.g. 5 are needed when there are 6 categories). The cartoon was used in the February 2020 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Dominic Matriccino, a student at the University of Virginia. 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 second winner in the February 2020 contest was "The grass really is greener on the homogeneity side," written by Jennifer Ann Morrow, an instructor from University of Tennessee. Jennifer's cartoon caption can be used in discussing the importance of within-group variability in judging differences between groups and the difficulty when the groups being compared have different levels of variability.
A cartoon that supports the importance of coding, and the how statistical computations and simulations using technology has created a variety of new possibilities in statistics. The cartoon was used in the December 2019 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Nicholas Varberg, a student at the University of Colorado Boulder. 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 cartoon that can be used for discussing the difference between a bar graph and a histogram and how they are used. The cartoon was used in the July 2019 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Greg Crowther from Everett Community 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.
A cartoon that can be used for discussing the traditional theme of "Correlation does not imply Causation" as well as what observational evidence does provide the most convincing evidence of a causal relationship. The cartoon was used in the June 2019 CAUSE cartoon caption contest. 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 cartoon that can be used in the classroom to highlight different approaches to research. The cartoon was used in the April 2019 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and this winning caption was written by Jennifer Ann Morrow from The University of Tennessee. 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 co-winning caption in the April 2019 contest was "Since the dawn of time, some were meant to draw pictures. Others were meant to draw conclusions... based on statistics!" written by Joe Brickman, a student at John Carroll University.