Projects in Statistics Courses
Mary Parker, prepared for MAA Minicourse, January 18, 2000.
http://www.austincc.edu/mparker/stat/maajan2000.html
Goals for projects:
To give students experiences in:
Issues that are difficult for students:
Dealing with the difficulties:
Websites with material relating to projects:
Journal of Statistics Education: Articles on Projects (Browse the index. Fillebrown, Mackisak, and Smith.have articles relevant to projects in general introductory courses.) http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/jindex.html
Beth Chance's syllabus (with project assignments) in her elementary course this semester. http://statweb.calpoly.edu/chance/stat217/syllabus.html
Beth Chance and Anne Sevin's Peer Review Worksheet
Mary Parker's project assignments in her elementary course this semester. http://www.austincc.edu/mparker/1342/projects.htm
Other material relating to projects:
Moore, Thomas, et. al. (2000) Teaching Resources for Undergraduate Statistics, to be published by the MAA Notes series in 2000. (Includes lots of material, including some on projects.)
Ledolter, J. (1995) "Projects in Introductory Statistics Courses" The American Statistician, Volume 49, Number 4, p. 364-367
Roberts, H. (1992) "Student-Conducted Projects in Introductory Statistics Courses", in Statistics for the Twenty-first Century, MAA Notes, no. 26.
Examples of short projects to be done early in the semester:
Project 1:
Recall the example about cats that we discussed in class. My question was whether my cat is particularly big. The cases (also called individuals) were cats, and the variable we chose was "length", in inches, measured to the nearest inch. Recall that we had to define the variable more precisely. Some questions were (1) Should I include the tail? and (2) If I include the tail, do I measure to the tip of the fur or just to the tip of the tail without the fur? Observations on the length of a cat might be 15 inches, 18 inches, 12 inches, and 13 inches.
Now, you do one. Think of some variables which you might be interested in analyzing sometime.
Project 2: Plan a study.
1. Formulating the question. Think of a question of interest to you for which you (you, as a student and an individual) could collect some data.
Examples:
a. What percentage of cars don't completely stop at the stop sign at the north corner of Waterston and Hartford?
b. In a blind tast test, do people prefer Classic Coke to Pepsi?
c. How accurately could we predict hat size from forearm length?
Write the question and explain how this question is of interest to you or someone. How might accurate knowledge about the answer change someone's actions?
2. Identifying relevant variable(s).
Explain what the variable(s) is and how you expect to measure it. Discuss any definitions needed. (Remember the example about the length of a cat -- does that include the tail or not?)
3. How would you collect useful data?
Is this a question for which you just go collect data or do you have to set up an experiment? (Example b above requires you to set up an experiment.) Explain how you could get an appropriate sample or design an experiment. Describe the population in which you are interested and explain how this method of collecting data will result in data from this population that is appropriate for statistical inference.
Last updated January 17, 2000. Mary Parker, mparker@austincc.edu