This article presents activities appropriate for the first half of a general introductory statistics course. All activities revolve around the same data set collected early in the course. The activities require students to make decisions about how they should proceed. (Contains 2 tables and 5 figures.)

This article provides an easy derivation of updating formulae for the sample covariance and, by extension, for the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient.

The correlation coefficient is commonly used to indicate the quality of fit in regression. This practice is questionable.

We find the correlation of two jointly distributed random variables connected with a coin tossing experiment. The marginal distributions are binomial and negative binomial.

This article suggests how to explain a problem of small sample size when considering correlation between two Normal variables. Two techniques are shown: one based on graphs and the other on simulation. (Contains 3 figures and 1 table.)

Interpretation of correlation is often based on rules of thumb in which some boundary values are given to help decide whether correlation is non-important, weak, strong or very strong. This article shows that such rules of thumb may do more harm than good, and instead of supporting interpretation of correlation--which is their aim--they teach a…

We explain how to simulate both univariate and bivariate raw data sets having specified values for common summary statistics. The first example illustrates how to "construct" a data set having prescribed values for the mean and the standard deviation--for a one-sample t test with a specified outcome. The second shows how to create a bivariate data…

This short article gives a geometrical interpretation of the relationship between the harmonic mean, the arithmetic mean and the self-weighted mean. (Contains 1 figure.)

As a branch of knowledge, Statistics is ubiquitous and its applications can be found in (almost) every field of human endeavour. In this article, the authors track down the possible source of the link between the "Siren song" and applications of Statistics. Answers to their previous five questions and five new questions on Statistics are presented.

Many students have difficulty seeing the conceptual link between bivariate data displayed in a scatterplot and the statistical summary of the relationship, "r." This article shows how to teach (and compute) "r" such that each datum's direct and indirect influences are made apparent and used in a new formula for calculating Pearson's "r."

This article evaluates and explores the correlation (+0.892) between the United States federal election winner and the most recent Washington Redskin home-game winner, a relation perfectly linked for 17 of 18 elections since franchise inception in 1936.

This article explores the relationships between several pairs of statistics kept on professional golfers on the PGA tour. Specifically, two measures related to the player's ability to drive the ball are compared as are two measures related to the player's ability to putt. An additional analysis is made between one statistic related to putting and…