Questions tagged [teaching]
For questions about the teaching of probability and statistics, at any level.
217
questions
6
votes
2
answers
246
views
Why do we adjust for within-group variability in statistical testing of differences in group means?
I hope this question fits the forum. I'm not a statistician, but have received decent training in statistics and use statistical modeling in my daily work. I've been tasked to give a very condensed &...
- 979
2
votes
0
answers
36
views
What are some Wikipedia articles on statistics that contain erroneous statements? [closed]
I've noticed that sometimes, statements made in Wikipedia articles about statistics are criticized on CrossValidated.
I understand that one does not necessarily have the time to edit an article to fix ...
- 21
1
vote
0
answers
26
views
Most efficient way of converting a Quarto document to a presentation [closed]
I currently have a large body of statistics lecture notes that I wrote in Rmarkdown/Quarto document format, and I am looking to convert these notes to Quarto presentations in the simplest way possible....
2
votes
0
answers
72
views
Which random variables $X,Y$ are related by $Y=X^2$ operation? [closed]
For which $X$ coming from some named distribution family, does distribution of $X^2$ also have a name?
Here are some examples I found, any others?
...
- 6,107
0
votes
0
answers
78
views
Why is linear regression taught differently from what I have learned? [duplicate]
I took a machine learning course using the book "Learning from Data: A Short Course" by Hsuan-Tien Lin, Malik Magdon-Ismail, and Yaser Abu-Mostafa (LFD)
You are given a set of examples $\{...
0
votes
0
answers
30
views
Using the normal distribution in real life
I am looking for examples of where the normal distribution has been used in published journals or other real data sets.
To add some context, I teach A-level (16-18) Maths and I would like to include ...
10
votes
2
answers
603
views
Does the Frequentist approach to forecasting ignore uncertainty in the parameter's value?
I am reviewing textbooks for our new undergraduate course in Bayesian Statistical Methods. In chapter 7 of Ben Lambert's book, A Student's Guide to Bayesian Statistics, he states
Because of the two ...
- 5,314
6
votes
1
answer
86
views
Who created the "soup analogy" for sampling
The soup analogy is,
You only need a single spoon to sample the soup, provided it is well stirred.
It has been used several times here Sampling distributions of sample means and What is your ...
- 447
0
votes
0
answers
67
views
Simulating dataset for class
Not sure whether what I’m after is possible, but thought I would ask. I am trying to create a database with a dichotomized dependent variables and a bunch of binary (1/0) independent variables. I'd ...
- 169
10
votes
3
answers
443
views
How to motivate undergrads to take an Intro to Math Stats course
How would you motivate an undergraduate student to take an Introduction to Mathematical Statistics course, if they know that much of their time will be spent proving results they've already seen in ...
3
votes
2
answers
87
views
Good teaching activities for variability and standardized distributions for undergrad stats
As the question states, I am looking for some warmup activities for teaching undergrads practical examples of variation and standardized distributions. I think the first part is relatively easy to ...
1
vote
1
answer
83
views
Why is bayes theorem formula always presented in the hard-to-remember way? [closed]
$P(B|A)\cdot P(A) = P(A|B)\cdot P(B)$
would be so much more intuitive to understand and thus easier to remember.
- 11
3
votes
1
answer
69
views
Why do we use the terminology of Type I/Type II when describing errors in hypothesis testing?
I was teaching someone else about type I and type II errors, and they asked the question of why errors are called type I and type II errors. It seems to me that we could call type I errors a "...
- 734
10
votes
4
answers
790
views
Introductory material on splines
I am looking for a basic, step-by-step introduction into modelling with splines.
(I have encountered splines while teaching another topic. The textbook I am using does not cover splines in sufficient ...
- 63.6k
2
votes
0
answers
72
views
Update to Box and Jenkins Air Passenger data? [closed]
A textbook example of a time series is the Box and Jenkins Air Passenger data. In R you can get it with the command data(AirPassengers). It has the number of ...
- 267
2
votes
0
answers
310
views
Solutions to 'Statistical Learning with Sparsity'
I've recently been working through Statistical Learning with Sparsity (SLS) by Hastie, Tibshirani and Hastie.
I found some exercises very hard, and think I found some mistakes. A set of solutions ...
3
votes
1
answer
92
views
How to read the formal multiplication rule?
I have no problem understanding the question at Statistics Show How To
Question 3: A wedding caterer gives you three choices for the main
course, six starter choices and five options for dessert. How ...
- 641
1
vote
0
answers
62
views
Biasness of an estimator depends on whether you take expectation of the estimator or its inverse
(Please read until the end)
know
Consider two ways of writing the exponential distribution-
(A) $\frac{1}{\beta} e^{-\frac{x}{\beta}}$ and
(B) $\theta e^{-x\theta}$
If I estimate $\beta$ or $\theta$...
- 11
1
vote
0
answers
238
views
Is the non-multicollinearity assumption for OLS multiple regression just an assumption of convenience?
The four assumptions for bivariate regression are:
• (L)inearity
• (I)ndepdent observations
• (N)ormal errors
• (E)qual variance
And for multiple regression we add a fifth assumption:
...
- 5,314
1
vote
0
answers
46
views
When do we REALLY need to distinguish interval from ratio measurement levels?
This question is specifically aimed toward the practice of statistics and data science and toward statistics educators (particularly introductory level statistics).
In brief, ¿when do we really need ...
- 5,314
7
votes
5
answers
2k
views
How to learn statistics for medical research?
I'm a last year medical student, as we say "Intern doctor". In the future I want to do research on the issue that I want to get in.
Therefore I want to learn mathematics, statistics, R ...
1
vote
0
answers
17
views
Normally distributed: examples like LTCM
I am looking for examples of organizations suffering dire consequences (losing money) because they have assumed that something was normally distributed hence underestimating the risk of tail events.
...
- 1,168
4
votes
2
answers
185
views
Non-self-referential interpretation of confidence intervals?
Interpreting what a (say) 95% confidence interval actually means is obviously tricky, especially when you are trying to teach it to students just beginning to learn stats.
One of the biggest ...
- 3,246
4
votes
1
answer
100
views
Resources or textbooks about teaching statistics (pedagogy)
I want to become a better teacher and, therefore, I am looking for resources or textbooks about how to teach statistics and quantitative methods to students or learners (focusing on hints on how to ...
- 3,453
24
votes
7
answers
3k
views
Explain in layperson's terms why predictive models aren't causally interpretable
Imagine that you are asked to infer some causal effect -- a change in an outcome $y$ in response to some variable $x$. But, the person asking for this directs you to use a predictive model to do so. ...
- 13k
1
vote
1
answer
305
views
Central Limit Theorem - intuitive explanation without deep math [duplicate]
The Central Limit Theorem says that the distribution of the sample mean is approximately normal. Is there any intuitive explanation for why this should be so? I know it can be proven with deep math, ...
- 6,528
1
vote
2
answers
126
views
In Bayes Theorem why do we say :given that" when "out of" is more understandable. (Why is Conditional on referred to as "Given") [closed]
I understood the answer to my problem here when I substituted the "given that" symbol with the phrase "out of"
I got this idea from 3Blue1Brown where Grant points out that people ...
- 641
3
votes
4
answers
151
views
What are some references to teach statistics to business students?
I am going to teach a Statistics course next year and I should cover the basics of probabilities and statistics to undergrad students in business. They don't have any background in probability, so, at ...
5
votes
2
answers
388
views
Why is the formula for the density of a transformed random variable expressed in terms of the derivative of the inverse?
In this very nice answer, the intuitive explanation of the formula for the density of a transformed random variable, $Y = g(X)$, leads naturally to an expression like
$$f_Y(y) = \frac{f_X(g^{-1}(y))}{...
- 201
21
votes
1
answer
736
views
Why do we use term “population” instead of “Data-generating process”?
I have always been confused about the use of the term “population” in statistics. In my first statistics course I was taught that we need a sample, because surveying the whole population is too costly....
2
votes
2
answers
303
views
What concept comes before VAE and after GMM?
Suppose I am designing a course on generative models and I have just finished discussing GMM. My goal is to teach VAE.
However, VAE's technicality is very high. Does there exist some model in between ...
- 714
4
votes
0
answers
195
views
LCA - how to include predictors (conceptual difference between one-step and bias-corrected three-step approach?)
I am trying to teach LCA as part of a modelling course, but I haven't quite made sense of how to deal with testing whether certain (demographic variables) predict class membership.
Question: (Why) ...
- 277
1
vote
0
answers
13
views
Why does the Standard deviation formula when using coded data not account for the addition or subtraction of coded part
When we code data from x to x-b the standard deviation formula is:
Sd(x)=sd(x-b)= (sum of(x-b)^2)/n - (sum of (x-b)/n)^2
Why do they not use (sum of (x-b)/n +b )^2 for the second part since this is ...
- 11
3
votes
0
answers
51
views
Textbook default estimator of Bernoulli variance
Why do "most" (basically all) statistics text books use $\hat{\sigma}^2=\hat{p} (1-\hat{p})$ as an estimator for the variance of a Bernoulli process which we know is biased.
Should the first ...
- 958
3
votes
2
answers
56
views
Is this problem calculable only due to the parameter choices?
I am looking at a problem form Hogg, Tannis & Zimmerman (Ed. 10), and I am curious if the given problem is calculable (for an upper-level undergrad math/stats course) because of the choice of the ...
- 5,314
7
votes
4
answers
2k
views
Trick to remember when to reject null (p-values vs alpha)
I teach introductory statistics to undergraduates and they are often confused with hypothesis testing. In particular, while the rule is
we reject the null hypothesis at significance level $\alpha$ ...
- 2,667
3
votes
0
answers
215
views
Why don't textbooks on statistics start with an introduction to probability?
I recently read through Introduction to Probability, Statistics, and Random Processes by Hossein Pishro-Nik (free online version available here), and what I liked most about it is that it starts off ...
- 4,123
1
vote
0
answers
61
views
Is there any university program that offers an intro statistical methods class that is bayesian -instead- of a frequentist one? [closed]
Is there any university program that offers an introductory statistical methods class that is bayesian -instead- of a frequentist one?
Surely every intro to stats class in every program in the world, ...
- 1,843
1
vote
2
answers
96
views
Does anyone in practice actually develop supervised model from scratch outside of classroom setting?
I have a question in regards to why bother with developing a model from scratch and perform hyperparameter tuning when you can just use transfer learning for supervised learning.
The way that a ...
69
votes
32
answers
5k
views
What are the worst (commonly adopted) ideas/principles in statistics?
In my statistical teaching, I encounter some stubborn ideas/principles relating to statistics that have become popularised, yet seem to me to be misleading, or in some cases utterly without merit. I ...
3
votes
5
answers
80
views
Pedagogical order of study for named distributions
I've seen myriads of named probability densities or distributions in multiple books and courses, usually both Binomial and Bernoulli are among the first discrete ones, while for continuous they use ...
4
votes
0
answers
92
views
Reference for flawed randomized controlled trial
For a seminar, I am preparing an overview of advantages and shortcomings of randomized control trials (RCT; one shortcoming is, for example, often a limited external validity).
To illustrate ...
1
vote
1
answer
166
views
Web apps for visualization of probability distributions
I am looking for a tool to demonstrate how the shapes of some basic probability distributions (binomial, hypergeometric, Poisson, exponential and normal) change as a function of their parameters.
I ...
2
votes
4
answers
333
views
Intuition of terms P(θ) and P(y) in Bayes' Theorem [duplicate]
I am struggling with the intuition behind terms in the Bayes' Theorem. In the simple example of a deck of cards we have:
$$ P(King | Red) = \frac{P(Red | King)P(King)}{P(Red)} $$
The terms in this ...
- 217
7
votes
2
answers
213
views
Spurious relationships: flavours, terminology
The following types of relationships come to my mind when I think of the term "spurious" (as in "spurious regression" or "spurious correlation"):
A statistical ...
- 63.6k
10
votes
2
answers
478
views
Quick test of quality of an econometrics textbook
When encountering an econometrics textbook for the first time, you might wish to assess its quality. What is the first thing you check? Is there a certain topic or a definition you examine, knowing ...
84
votes
13
answers
9k
views
Famous statistical wins and horror stories for teaching purposes
I am designing a one year program in data analysis with a local community college. The program aims to prepare students to handle basic tasks in data analysis, visualization and summarization, ...
3
votes
0
answers
51
views
(Teaching) references for computational complexity
Background: I am going to teach computational complexity (time complexity) within an introductory course in machine learning. I would like to gently introduce the notion of computational complexity ...
1
vote
0
answers
23
views
Ways to make parametric statistics work with real time (often non-normal) data
BACKGROUND:
I have been tasked with teaching basic data analysis methods with R to a group of people in a business setting.
While my stance is that I am most difinitely not at the level where I ...
- 13
0
votes
0
answers
71
views
Poisson process as a spatial process
Let's consider a Poisson process on the line with rate parameter $\lambda$. There are two ways to think about this:
In any interval $[a,b)$ the expected number of events is distributed as a Poisson ...
- 131