HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.edstat-l
Date:         Thu, 1 Oct 1992 10:48:47 EDT
Reply-To:     Walt Pirie <WLTPIRIE@VTVM1.BITNET>
From:         Walt Pirie <WLTPIRIE@VTVM1.BITNET>
Subject:      What Intro course

Dennis Roberts writes:



What can we possibly expect students to get out of ONE course in ANY area
whether it be intro stat or intro business economics or intro spanish?  Not
much.  If all students took in school was one of this and one of that, they
would graduate with essentially no skills in anything.  That is why we have
majors or minors or emphasis areas and the like.  This discussion about what
should be in THE course fail to recognize that one course does not maketh a
competent person, a know it all in stat or anything else.  This is a big
fallacy.  Should we emphasize 10 basic concepts?  or a cadre of descriptive
techniques (not high powered but useful for summarizing data)?  or the 10
biggest myths of what stat can do for us?  or grahpical methods?  or what?
We will never agree on this ...  and why should we, there is plenty of room
(different emphases) in different courses, even intoductory.  I would pose
the following analogy: what do we want a class of spanish 1 students to
learn and take away from that course if they have not had any exposure to
spanish before?  Know 25 grammar rules?  Be able to translate
severalpassages from spanish newspapers into english?  Orally understand
spoken spanish?  Be cognizant of the spanish culture?  Be able to go back
and forth between 300 spanish/english words?  No matter how we define
spansih 1, and there are many valid ways to do it, ONE COURSE IS NOT ENOUGH!
Now, IF the requirement was that each student took 4 courses in spanish, or
4 courses in stat ...  then we could do something with realistic goals that
could be implemented and accomplished.  Sure, FEWER areas would be covered,
but maybe that is ultimately better.  Well, anyway, I appreciate your email
notes and respect varying points of view but, I feel we fail too often to
realize that no one course, no matter how it is organized and taught is
going to "learn" the student the right ways NOR permanently damage the
student for life.  one course just does not have that much impact on
anything.  so, this is my latenight email response ...  cheers!

Good point. I agree. The problem is that in Statistics, almost uniquely,
people do take one, or two, or even three courses and feel that makes
them qualified in some sense to be statisticians, including teaching
it. Could we imagine that happening in other areas, for example in
Dennis's example, Spanish? Rarely at best.
Walt Pirie
Stat, Va Tech
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Date:         Mon, 28 Sep 1992 08:24:39 +0200
Reply-To:     BOKKIE@UCTVAX.UCT.AC.ZA
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From:         BOKKIE@UCTVAX.UCT.AC.ZA
Subject:      Re: Who should teach stats

I think Dennis Roberts summed it up quite nicely, and
he appears to confirm what I wrote earlier:  It's all
a matter of pragmatics (i.e. usually $'s).

However, we might learn a lot more about this if we could
conduct a survey, sampling from this list and stat-l for
instance, to determine who actually does teach stats, why
when, where, etc.  Anybody ready to take this up?

My final word on "who shall teach" is also related to an
earlier posting: It is exactly through things like EDSTAT-L
that those of us who need it can enrich ourselves so as to
improve our teaching.  Personally, I really value this
medium. The relative anonymity, the minimized status
differences one encounters.  I've found this group quite
good-natured and I don't feel afraid to pitch in with a
naive question or comment now and again.

Frank Bokhorst
Psychology Department
University of Cape Town
From: jerry@hnrc.tufts.edu (Jerry Dallal)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.edstat-l
Subject: Re: Envelope
Date: 6 Oct 92 18:44:04 GMT
Organization: USDA HNRC at Tufts University

In article <EDSTAT-L%92100512575639@NCSUVM.CC.NCSU.EDU>, WLTPIRIE@VTVM1.BITNET (Walt pirie) writes:
> Jerry (excitable) Dallal asked me for a rando m variable. Choose an answer you
> like:
> 1. There are no random variables. It's all deterministic from the start. There'
> s only lack of information.
> 2. Sure, I've got lots of random variables. Which would you like? How about:
> let X=1 if the envelope chosen has the larger amount and X=0 if the smaller amo
> unt. Assume a dist'n of 1/2-1/2. Now open the envelope and observe the amount (
> say, $100). What information has been learned about the random variable X? To a
>  frequentist, none that I can discern.
> 
> Walt Pirie
> Stat, Va Tech


Then you can't condition on it and there's no paradox.  Great!
From: IARSPAL@UCLAMVS.BITNET (Peter A. Lachenbruch)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.edstat-l
Subject: teaching statistics at the elementary level
Date: 29 Sep 92 16:53:00 GMT
Reply-To: "Peter A. Lachenbruch" <IARSPAL@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
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1.  The Quantitative Literacy Program of ASA (American STATISTICAL Association)
  has some outstanding material - Check with the national office. There are som
e rich resources available through Dale Seymour, Publishers (in Palo Alto, I
think) which are absolutely terrific!
2.  You might also contact Richard L. Schaeffer at Florida State who has been
very active in this area.
3.  The ISI, International Statistical Institute has just started a group on
Statistical Education.
4. The journal, TEACHING STATISTICS, is published 3 times a year and is devoted
 to teaching to 9 to 19 year olds, but most of the material is useful for
students in colleges and universities - I've used some of the material for
graduate courses.  Peter Holmes will probably answer you on this network -he's
the editor.

Hope this helps, Andy
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Date:         Mon, 28 Sep 1992 20:18:42 EDT
Reply-To:     "Dr. Robert Hayden" <hayden@OZ.PLYMOUTH.EDU>
From:         "Dr. Robert Hayden" <hayden@OZ.PLYMOUTH.EDU>
Subject:      Walt Pirie posting

Virtually every college or university in the US needs and offers one
or more service courses in statistics, but most do not have a
statistics DEPARTMENT.  I think this is the main reason (historically)
why so much statistics is taught by non-statisticians.  If it's done
this way at most colleges and universities, it's likely to also be
done this way at those that DO have a stats. dept.
--


      _
     | |          Robert W. Hayden
     | |          Department of Mathematics
    /  |          Plymouth State College
   |   |          Plymouth, New Hampshire 03264  USA
   | * |
  /    |          (603) 536-2497
 |     )          (603) 535-2489
 L_____/          hayden@oz.plymouth.edu
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Date:         Sat, 3 Oct 1992 12:12:36 EDT
Reply-To:     Mary Beth Oliver <OLIVERMB@VTVM1.BITNET>
From:         Mary Beth Oliver <OLIVERMB@VTVM1.BITNET>
Subject:      men, women, and math

 Those interested in gender differences in math performance might
consider reading the following:

Hyde, J. S., Fennema, E., & Lamon, S. J. (1990). Gender differences in
    mathematics performance: A meta-analysis. _Psychological Bulletin_,
    _107_, 139-155.

To quote from the abstract:
"Reviewers have consistently concluded that males perform better on mathematics
tests than females do.  To make a refined assessment of the magnitude of
gender differences in mathematics performance, we performed a meta-analysis
of 100 studies.  They yielded 254 independent effect sizes, representing the
testing of 3,175,188 Ss.  Averaged over all effect sizes based on samples of
the general population, d was -0.05, indicating that females outperformed males
by only a negligible amount.  For computation, d was -.14 (the negative value
indicating superior performance by females).  For understanding of mathematical
age trends indicated that girls showed a slight superiority in computation in
elementary school and middle school.  There were no gender differences in
in high school (d=0.29) and in college (d=0.32).  Gender differences were
smallest and actually favored females in the general population, grew larger
with increasingly selective samples, and were largest for highly selected
samples and samples of highly precocious presons.  The magnitude of the gender
difference has declined over the years; for studies published in 1973
or earilier d was 0.31, whereas it was 0.14 for studies published in 1974
or later.  We conclude that gender differences in mathematics performance
are small.  Nonetheless, the lower performance of women in problem solving
that is evident in high school requires attention."
From: efst03@castle.ed.ac.uk (D I Sales)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.edstat-l
Subject: Re: Applied statistical work
Date: 6 Oct 92 13:10:20 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University
cc: COMERS@CITADEL.BITNET

In article <01GPIWEUV6SO8Y56ZL@Citadel.edu> Steve Comer <COMERS@CITADEL.BITNET> writes:
>How does an applied statistician document "scholarly" work?
>For tenure or promotion most departments and colleges look for evidence of
>scholarship.  In the case of an applied statistician located in non-statistic
>departments (eg., mathematics) what type of evidence of scholarly work is
>normally acceptable?  I'm asking about items other than papers in refereed
>journals.  Is it normal to cite papers by others who acknowledge help with
>statistical calculations?  Does one include consulting work for companies
>where the results and data are confidential and not subject to peer review?
>What is "scholarship" for an applied statistician?

I am surprised that noone seems to have followed up this one, especially
as it is closely related to the recent (and perennial) thread of "who
should teach Stats".

My own experience is that there is no satisfactory way, because the review
process puts most of the emphasis on papers published in refereed journals.
Consultancy and commercial work lead to fewer such papers relative to the
time expended.  Any papers that do arise tend to be harder to get published
(referees seem to be more critical of papers outside the mainstream) and
are usually in applied journals; such journals tend to be given lower 
ratings in staff assessments!

This system leads to strong selective pressure for individuals to shun any
inter-disciplinary work and concentrate on "pure" research.  Thus those with
tenure tend to be those least suited to teaching service courses for other
departments.  A corollary of this is that journals that start out as "applied"
tend to evolve towards the "pure" (e.g. Biometrika).

There are of course some exceptional individuals who are able to swim against
the tide; the rest of us struggle masochistically on.  Why do we do it?
Job satisfaction, of course!

-- 
David I Sales    efst03@castle.ed.ac.uk
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.edstat-l
Date:         Tue, 29 Sep 1992 11:31:02 PDT
Reply-To:     Glenn Meyer <meyer@LCLARK.EDU>
From:         Glenn Meyer <meyer@LCLARK.EDU>
Subject:      who teaches stat.

I'm sorry but I'm getting rather sick of endless streams
of messages over who teaches stat. The issue has become
a matter of faith and zealotry. Let's use this list for issues of
substance and not endless editorials.

One solution: Let's have one giant section of intro stat for
the whole country (>150000 students a year - perhaps) and have
Walt Pirie teach it and grade it.

please no more.
glenn meyer
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Date:         Wed, 30 Sep 1992 09:55:00 EDT
Reply-To:     PERRYLM@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU
From:         PERRYLM@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU
Subject:      who teaches stat?

amen!  I've heard enough about "who teaches stat" and most of it at least
 twice.I know it's important but let's move along to something else.
Mike Perry
From: jerry@hnrc.tufts.edu (Jerry Dallal)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.edstat-l
Subject: The envelope, please . . .
Date: 30 Sep 92 02:33:34 GMT
Organization: USDA HNRC at Tufts University


            Let's see if we can put the envelope problem in the proper 
        sampling  framework.   Clearly,  each individual can play  the 
        game only once before learning the optimal strategy (since the 
        greater  amount will be known),  so consider a set of  players 
        rather than a set of plays.   
            
            Each  player  follows vos Savant's strategy and  switches.  
        Half gain, half lose,  zero sum game.  (You could even, unkown 
        to  them,  pair them and have them playing each other!)    The 
        switch strategy must be faulty because its predictions fail to 
        occur.    The  group as a whole  doesn't  generate  additional 
        capital. 
            
             Why is the switch strategy faulty?   Each player said, "I 
        have a fifty percent chance of improving my lot."  Wrong!  Not 
        once the envelopes were assigned.  Their chances were either 0 
        or 1.  Those with  the higher amounts had no chance to improve 
        their  lot  because  the amount they  thought they had  a  50% 
        chance of obtaining wasn't even part of the game.   Once  they 
        had their envelopes, they had a 0% chance of further gain, not 
        50%. 
            
            If  you think about it for a minute,  you'll see that  the 
        issues underlying this  problem  are the very reasons students 
        have  trouble  with  confidence  intervals.  There has to be a 
        stochastic component to a problem in order to make probability 
        statements.    Thus,  it is incorrect to say,  "there is a 95% 
        probability  that  the  interval (-2.7,   1.5)   contains  the 
        population mean," for the same reason is is incorrect  to say, 
        "there is a 50% probability the other envelope contains $100." 
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.edstat-l
Date:         Sat, 26 Sep 1992 11:14:46 CDT
Reply-To:     Allen Herzog <U50161@UICVM.BITNET>
Comments:     "U. of Illinois at Chicago"
From:         Allen Herzog <U50161@UICVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Dependent Measures

         Kahn, Jones and several others have discussed the concept
of indpendence in probability.  An interesting view of this notion
is provided by David Ruelle in his fascinating philosophical and
relatively non-technical book "Chance and Chaos" (Princeton
University Press, 1991) from the point of view of a professional
physcist.  He writes in a footnote (pp. 169-170) to his chapter
on "Probabilities" as follows:

          "We insist on giving a physical definition of the indpendence
of events.  Saying that two events are independent when they 'have
nothing to do with each other' can hardly be called an operational
definition, though. It would be better to to say that it is a metaphysical
principle that suggests operational defintions in specific cases, and the
validity of these operational defintiions can then be checked from the
consequences. But why not rather use the mathematical defintion of
independence  ( If A & B are independent, then prob (A and B)=
prob(A) X prob(B) - my interperlation)and verify it by statistical tests?
This is a neat way to present things in principle, and it is the way
used in textbooks, but not the way used in practice.

           In fact, statistical tests are a heavy and often unconvincing
machinery. So ccientists first guessthat two events are independent because
they have nothing to do with each other. Then they will thing of possible
reasons why the independence would be spoiled.  And only as a last
resort will they use statistical testing."

                                                  Allen Herzog
                                                  U50161@UICVM
From: SBROWN@KENTVM.BITNET (Steven R Brown)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.edstat-l
Subject: Re: Teaching Correlation, Suggestions?
Date: 5 Oct 92 20:48:36 GMT
Reply-To: Steven R Brown <SBROWN@KENTVM.BITNET>
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU

On Mon, 5 Oct 1992 13:05:13 EDT arthur s ellen said:
>
>Does anyone have a suggestion for explaining the upper and lower limits
>of r and some alternative methods to teach correlation?

    Y
    |          D
    |
    |
    |
    |
    O-------------- X

If X and Y are wholly uncorrelated (r=0), then the two vectors will be
at right angles, as shown above (YOX).  As the degree of correlation
goes up, the X vector is drawn away from horizontal and toward Y (and Y
away from vertical and toward X), and the angle of upward displacement
from horizontal can be used as an expression of the degree of corre-
lation.  When r=1, the regression line would split the 90-degree angle
above, i.e., it would form a diagonal at 45-degrees, going through point
D, with angle DOX = 45-degrees.  At any point along the diagonal, a
plumb-line from the diagonal down to line X would create a right trian-
gle (DXO), with the line XD being the same length as XO.  The tangent of
DOX would therefore be tan(45) = DX/OX = 1.00.  Lesser amounts of corre-
lation would naturally shrink side DX relative to side OX, and the tan-
gent would become less than 1.00.  As it turns out, the geometric mean
of the angle of X's displacement from horizontal and Y's displacement
from vertical equals r -- i.e., r = SQRT[(tanX)(tanY)].  And, as it also
turns out, tanX = Sum(xy)/(Sum x**2), and tanY = Sum(xy)/(Sum y**2).
Hence, r = Sum(xy)/SQRT((Sum x**2)(Sum y**2)), which is the deviation-
score formula for r.

It is difficult to picture all of this in ASCII.  The relevant pictures
are in S.R. Brown's _Political Subjectivity_ (Yale University Press,
1980), pp. 267ff ("The Geometry of Correlation").
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Date:         Mon, 28 Sep 1992 17:56:00 BSC
Reply-To:     gomide@BRFAPQ
Comments:     @FAPQ.FAPESP.BR - @FAPQ%FPSP.HEPNET - @BRFAPQ.BITNET - .BR
              gateway
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From:         gomide@FPSP.FAPESP.BR
Subject:      Apologies re: InterMeta course

PLEASE DO NOT SEND MONEY !
It is with regret that I perform this task. Dr. Gelson V. Gomes. a
professor of the University of Parana, Brazil, has exceeded this
privileges and announced a eletronic course:

> ____________________________________________________________
>        Mastering INTERNET Tools, Seizing METANET Power -
>                      The InterMeta Course
> ____________________________________________________________

I must apologize for this flagrant breach of network etiquette. Please
be aware that Dr. Gelson had no right to do so, since this is against
the rules of our ANSP network, and also against the Bitnet rules.
PLEASE DO NOT SEND MONEY!
I will not discuss what his motivations were. But his account has been
revoked, and there will be no such course through my network.

Please write by normal mail, to:
-> Gelson V. Gomes
-> 358, R. Alvaro Andrade - ap.1201
-> Curitiba PR BRAZIL 80610-240
to get more information on his objectives. He may want to give the
course by normal mail.  :-)

With regards,
--
Alberto Courrege Gomide | Fundacao de Amparo `a Pesquisa - (11)831-3357
Software Supervisor     | Rua Pio XI, 1500 - CEP 05468-901 - Sao Paulo
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Date:         Fri, 2 Oct 1992 12:09:14 EDT
Reply-To:     Mary Ann Metzger <metzger@UMBC3.UMBC.EDU>
From:         Mary Ann Metzger <metzger@UMBC3.UMBC.EDU>
Subject:      Barbie becomes a Bayesian

 Robert Serpell sent me communications from other e-mail lists concerning
objections to the new speaking Barbie doll uttering a sentence something
like "Math is tough."  I am greatly enjoying the "envelope" discussion
and connected it to Barbie's angst in my response to Serpell:
========================================================
From:	UMBC2::METZGER      "MARY ANN METZGER"  2-OCT-1992 02:53:15.09
To:	SERPELL
CC:	METZGER
Subj:	Barbie's change of heart
... Perhaps Barbie was just temporarily exasperated by a math
problem that's been going around the e-mail circuit: Suppose the math teacher
gave Barbie a choice between two envelopes into one of which the teacher had
placed some randomly determined amount of money and into the other twice that
amount.  Barbie has chosen one and found $100 inside.  The teacher has now
offered Barbie the chance to take the other envelope instead.  Is there any
reason for Barbie to switch?

Ken says it's best to switch because after all there is a .5 chance that she
will find $50 in the other and a .5 chance she will find $200.  Therefore the
expected payoff for switching would be .5x50+.5x200 or $125, while the payoff
for not switching is $100.

The math teacher, though, says there can be no advantage gained from switching.
She says "Consider what would be the result if you played the game many times.
If the randomly selected amount each time is called X, then the first envelope
chosen will contain X half the time and 2X half the time, but the the same will
be true of the other envelope.  Therefore, there could be no point in
switching."

Barbie knows either Ken or the teacher must be wrong, but it's hard to see
where the hole might be in either argument.  Sometimes math class causes one to
ponder.  Perhaps that's what Barbie means by hard.  If she continues to think
deeply, though, she will see the hole in Ken's argument and she will be
surprised to see that the teacher has made the same mistake as Ken, thus
neither Ken nor the teacher has given a correct analysis.

After Barbie has solved the problem, she will probably tell the toy company she
wants them to retract the comment since it was taken out of context.

When I was in high school, two students were best by far at math.  Both were
girls. The math prize at graduation was awarded to the distant third, a nice
young man who I believe went on to major in history and become a lawyer. The
thinking was that it was not important for girls to have academic prizes. At
the time, no one found it remarkable.  So, I think it is a great sign of
progress that so many people sound the alarm when they see others trivialize
the academic efforts of young women and discourage them from achievement in
math and science.

Math is fun. -Mary Ann