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An International Journal for Teachers |
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Record Values and Surviving Glacial Moraines p.66 Roger
Johnson
Estimating the number of glacial advances from surviving glacial debris can,
amazingly enough, be cast as a records problem for which there is substantial
statistical literature. As a result, instructors may illustrate method of
moments and maximum-likelihood estimation techniques with an interesting problem
in the physical sciences.
COMPUTING CORNER
Teaching Confidence Intervals with Java Applets p. 70
Andrew Bertie & Paddy Farrington
Confidence intervals are pedagogically important but often misinterpreted.
This article describes Java applets designed to help students understand two
interpretations of confidence intervals.
Regression through the Origin p. 76 Joseph G Eisenhauer
This article describes situations in which regression through the origin
is appropriate, derives the normal equation for such a regression and explains
the controversy regarding its evaluative statistics. Differences between three
popular software packages that allow regression through the origin are illustrated
using examples from previous issues of Teaching Statistics.
Exploring the Probabilities of 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?'
p. 81 Robert J Quinn
This article discusses three probabilistic scenarios based on the television
game show 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?'. These situations provide motivational
opportunities for high-school students to explore the concepts of expected
value, permutations and independent events.
Intuition in Using Nominal Variables in Prediction p. 86
Ron Suich & Richard Turek
The notion of independence between two nominal variables is typically introduced
through the use of chi-square analysis of contingency tables, while the topic
of prediction of one nominal variable from a second nominal variable using
optimal prediction to the mode is often omitted. Through the use of a questionnaire,
this article indicates that there is considerable confusion among students
on the difference between concepts of independence and prediction, and remedies
are suggested.
Do Football Teams have Clusters of Wins, Draws and Defeats? p. 90
Nigel Smeeton
The issue of whether football teams have good or bad patches during the
course of a season is of concern to many supporters. This interest can be
harnessed to make classroom teaching of probability more relevant. In this
article, the unfamiliar runs test for multiple outcomes is used to test for
possible clustering in wins, draws and defeats in a short series of consecutive
matches.
On the Number of Cycles in Randomly Selected Permutations p. 93
Kavita Laghate & M N Deshpande
In this article we derive the distribution, mean and variance of the number
of cycles in a randomly selected permutation of the first n integers.
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STATISTICAL DIVERSIONS p 96 Peter Petocz
& Eric Sowey
A new regular column in Teaching Statistics to get you thinking.
BOOK REVIEW
Teaching Statistics - A bag of tricks by
Andrew Gelman & Deborah Nolan p. 85
Reviewed by Margaret Rangecroft
IASE Matters (centrefold) News and Notes (95) Index to Volume 25 (IBC)
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)