Visualizing Statistics to aid Student Comprehension: Three Demonstrations

Demonstration #1 Tool Classes: Cost Task Survey Monkey Classes: General Psychology Social Psychology Psychometrics (Measurement and Evaluation) Cost Free if you are using fewer than 10 items Task Have students create a short survey Collect Data Use Survey Monkey “Analyze” Useful Analysis and Visualization Percentages Cross Tab Creating Charts

Survey Monkey surveymonkey.com

Demonstration #2 Tool Classes: Cost Task Useful Excel Any, though requires a great deal of faculty attention &/or student training Cost Already available at most colleges Task Students can either enter their own data or can be provided with data Have students explore “Insert Chart” options Useful Understanding ways to misrepresent data (e.g., axis labels) Different data require different forms of graphing Changes in graphs can change how data is “visible” Demonstrating Interactions

Excel Viewing Data Graphing – misleading axis Interactions

Demonstration #3 Tool Classes Cost Task Useful Mathematica Statistics The demonstration version is free: http://www.demonstrations.wolfram.com/?affilliate=1 Task Provide students with links to visual demonstrations on statistical concepts Assign a task that instructs them what to do and/or questions to answer Useful Dozens of uses, and more being added regularly

Mathematica Bubble Chart demonstration: http://www.demonstrations.wolfram.com/BubbleChartComparisonsOfCountries/ Effects of multiple comparisons on Type 1 error http://www.demonstrations.wolfram.com/TheHazardOfMultipleComparisons/ Hypothesis testing – rejection region http://www.demonstrations.wolfram.com/HypothesisTestsAboutAPopulationMean/

Bubble Graphs

Type 1 Error

t-test

Thank you bgreen@esu.edu statisticalsage.wordpress.com