An International Journal for Teachers

Contents of 20-1 (Spring 1998)

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Remembering a Pioneer: Frank Yates p.2    David J Finney
A brief tribute to one of the major influences in statistics this century, indicating Frank Yates' contributions to the chi-squared tes on a 2 y 2 table, to experimental design, to the war effort, to sample surveying, to teaching and computing

DATA BANK
Lessons from the Triathlon p.6    Paul Killen
The author shows how he used data from a triathlon to motivate an elementary statistical investigation using Excel.

Countering Indifference using Counterintuitive Examples p.10    Larry Lesser
A proper use of counterintuitive examples can motivate, not demoralise, students. This is illustrated by using Simpson's Paradox

PRACTICAL ACTIVITIES
How long is a piece of string? p.13    Ralph Riddiough & John H McColl
A group of 14/15 year old pupils were asked to cut off 10 pieces of string of (their estimate) 20 cm from a ball of string. Another group did the same but with feed back about the accuracy. The results are compared for mean and variability over time.

Coincidences: the truth is out there p. 17  Robert Matthews & Fiona Stones
The authors give a simple way of demonstrating that coincidences really are 'out there', asprobability theory predicts - if we take the trouble to look.

STANDARD ERRORS
Teaching Large-sample Binomial Confidence Intervals p 20 Thomas J Santner

NET BENEFITS
Spreadsheet Resources for Statistics p 24 Mike Fuller

LETTER TO THE EDITOR
The Type I/Type II Error Blues (contd)  p. 27  Louis Pingel

CLASSROOM NOTE
The Central Limit Theorem with Continuity Correction  p 28 Gwyn Evans
Should the continuity correction be used when using the Normal approximation to the sampling distribution of the mean. An example shows that for medium and small size samples it may well be better.

SOFTWARE REVIEW
An Electronic Companion to Statistics  p.29  Neil Sheldon

TEACHING STATISTICS DIAGRAM COMPETITION  inside back cover

BOOK REVIEWS
Understanding Statistics   Graham Upton & Ian Cook p.32
 

Book Reviews (32)     News & Notes (32)             Look Ahead (32)

Letter (27),                   Notes for contributers (osbc)     IASE Matters (centre fold)

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Please email: alison.davies2@ntu.ac.uk with any comments or corrections.

© The Teaching Statistics Trust 2006. The Teaching Statistics Trust is a registered charity.
ISSN 0141-982X (Print) ISSN 1467-9639 (Online)