By Christian Stratton (Montana State University); Jennifer Green (Michigan State University)
Abstract
Statistical power is an important topic taught in most mathematical statistics courses, but it is often difficult to understand conceptually. Interactive web applications for visualizing power can help students more easily conceptualize power and how it arises, but most applications assume samples are drawn from a Normal population, concern only the sample mean, and/or were created for introductory classes. In this presentation, we describe and showcase a publicly available web application and class activity that allow users to visualize the complex relationships underlying power for multiple different statistics and population distributions. We also share our experiences using this web application and class activity in both online and in-person formats of upper-level undergraduate and masters-level graduate mathematical statistics courses that are traditionally part of a two-semester calculus-based sequence. Participants will receive the web application link, the class activity, and several ideas for using these tools to interactively teach power.