Using Media Resources and Journal Articles to Teach Statistics

• Activity Number: 260
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 5, 2013 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Phyllis Curtiss*+
• Companies: Grand Valley State University
• Keywords: Media ; Journal Articles ; Examples

Abstract

When teaching statistics, students need to see examples from outside the textbook. Even though authors of textbooks have begun to include more data from actual studies, we can better convince our students of the importance of statistics by using resources from the world around us. In introductory statistics courses, I give an extra credit and/or homework assignment that has students find resources that involve statistics. Different categories are explained which include articles containing survey results, experiments, or a mention of the margin of error. There are also "fun" categories which include jokes as well as pictures that are in the shape of a known distribution. In upper-level statistics courses, journal articles are found that fit the topics being covered. Students are informed that the professor will copy and use resources of interest in courses taught.

Assignments and examples will be shown to give ideas on creating assignments of your own.