Playing Games with a Purpose: Classroom Labs

• Activity Number: 172
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, July 30, 2012 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Rodney Sturdivant*+ and Alex Heidenberg and Rob Burks
• Companies: U.S. Military Academy and U.S. Military Academy and Naval Postgraduate School
• Keywords: Education ; Games ; Labs

Abstract

Games can be used as investigative laboratory modules (labs) to introduce undergraduates to statistical methods from a variety of disciplines. The game based labs described in this poster encourage students early in their undergraduate studies to experience the role of a research scientist and to understand how statistics help advance scientific knowledge. By making students grapple with intriguing real-world problems that demonstrate the intellectual content and broad applicability of statistics as a discipline, these labs encourage students to incorporate statistical thinking into any career. This poster will demonstrate how these materials can be used as project in an introductory statistics course; in a second statistics course to demonstrate how to properly design and conduct a research study; or they can be used individually to demonstrate to students and researchers in other disciplines how statisticians approach the scientific process.