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2014 NCTM Regional Conference
Houston, TX
Using ‘Fun’ in the Statistics Classroom:
Research and Recommendations
Larry Lesser et al.
Dept. of Mathematical Sciences, Professor
The University of Texas at El Paso
Supported in part by Project UPLIFT (NSF EHR DUE 1140690)
Universal Portability of Learning Increased by Fun Teaching
some Lesser (2007, 2008) statistics jokes
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What is a statistician’s favorite breakfast?
How many statisticians needed to change a light bulb?
Why did the statistician cross the road?
Why did a statistician take a bomb on her flight?
What are the last available graves at a cemetery?
the plan
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Importance
Types and sources
Examples
Research
Best practices
Diversity connections
Future directions, Q&A
general resources on humor
• Journals:
Humor: International J. of Humor Research;
The European J. of Humor Research;
The Israeli J. of Humor Research
• Organizations/Conferences:
Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor
International Society for Humor Studies
The Humor Project
SERIOUS potential benefits
of humor in statistics
(Lesser et al. 2013, citing Berk & Nanda, 1998, 2006; Garner, 2006; Neumann, Hood & Neumann, 2009)
“experimental studies of the pedagogical impacts of
humor have shown significant positive outcomes in
student ratings of the lesson,
student ratings of the instructor,
student anxiety,
student attitudes towards statistics, and
student recall and retention of information”
GAISE mentions ‘fun’
Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education College Report
http://www.amstat.org/education/gaise/
Active learning activities
“often engage students in learning
and make the learning process fun” (p. 18)
and “should be fun!” (p. 26)
research on fun is particularly
important in statistics
• Statistics is offered in several departments
and taken by students in many disciplines
• Statistics anxiety occurs across disciplines
(e.g., in the humanities, social sciences, and in
classes for pre-service elementary school teachers),
and anxiety-reduction is one potential benefit of the
use of fun items
canonical example of a “dread course”
Types of Fun Items
adapted from Lesser & Pearl (2008), Lesser et al. (2013)
Cartoons; Comic Strips
Celebration Days
Games
(Commercial,
Cultural, etc.)
Game Shows
Clothing
Humor/Jokes
Food
Kinesthetic
Activity
Fun books in content area
Literature
Magic
Quotations
Media
Bloopers
Movies
Strange
News
Striking
Examples
Videos
Music,
Raps,
Songs
Poems
Wordplay
Some Sources of Fun Items
in statistics….and beyond!
http://my.ilstu.edu/~gcramsey/Gallery.html
(since 1996)
free online stats games
http://web.grinnell.edu/individuals/kuipers/stat2labs/Labs.html
http://economics-files.ponoma.edu/StatSite/statgame.html
4 of my
“Media Clips”
in MT
http://singaboutscience.org/
causeweb.org/resources/fun/
over 500+ items; part of NSF’s NSDL system
some Lesser songs (on CAUSEweb.org)
TITLE
TOPIC
Call Me It Maybe
variation
Mean
median better than mean for data with
skewness/outliers
The Gambler
lottery literacy
MLE Let it Be
MLE properties
Hit Me with Your Best Shot Plot
graphing
Mexican Y Hat Dance
line of fit (notation & process)
Happy Birthday to You Song
Birthday Problem
One is the Loneliest Likeliest Number
Benford’s law
1 in 2
equiprobability bias
considerations for course use of fun
Lesser and Pearl (2008)
• Course goal/concept
associated with item
• Where used (e.g., in
class, on website)
• What to do/say/ask
before using the fun
item to “set it up”
• What to do/say/ask
after using item
OUR RESEARCH
(these items are all in the references/handout)
• 2008 review paper
• 2011 survey research published in 2013
• Fall 2013 randomized experiment
presented in 2014 eCOTS webinar
The USCOTS survey
• Survey (informed by literature on
hesitations and motivations, as well
as on completion inducements) at
2011 United States Conference on
Teaching Statistics, where
249 (66%) of 380 attendees participated
• Post-USCOTS interviews needed to
help contextualize and interpret
survey data, especially given
difficulties in defining fun
(statistics) instructor
motivations and hesitations
Lesser et al. (2013):
* to understand better the current usage of
fun in statistics education, including reasons
why some instructors use or do not use
modalities of fun in their courses
* to examine if instructor’s gender, typical
class size, institution type, and years of
experience relate to motivations and/or
hesitations for using fun in statistics teaching
* to assess awareness of resources for
finding statistics fun items
SURVEY249 (66%) of 380 attendees participated at USCOTS 2011
Survey from the CAUSE Study of Fun Cluster Group
Please respond to this anonymous survey as you reflect on the last time you taught an introductory statistics course. Put the completed survey in the box located on the
registration table (on Thursday) or at USCOTS Central by 4:30 pm on Friday to receive a “Study of Fun” notepad. When you return your survey, you can also drop your
raffle ticket in the bowl for a chance to win a Nook Color e-Reader. Stop by our table at the Posters and Beyond session on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. and you can see the
aggregate survey results and demonstrations of Statistics Fun!
BACKGROUND INFORMATION (fill in the blank or check your responses)
# of years teaching statistics ____ typical class size ____
Gender: □ Male □ Female
Institution: □ high school □ 2-yr college  □ 4-yr college  □ research institution  □ other
USAGE
Check each modality of fun that you have used in your statistics teaching:
□ Poems/Songs  □ Cartoons  □ Games
□ Jokes/Humor
 □ Other:_____________
Check each modality of fun that you have NOT used, but are open to using
 □ Poems/Songs  □ Cartoons  □ Games
□ Jokes/Humor
 □ Other:_____________
Check each modality of fun that you are not open to using:
 □ Poems/Songs  □ Cartoons  □ Games
□ Jokes/Humor
 □ Other:_____________
MOTIVATIONS
Which of the following are your main motivations for using (or considering the use of) fun in your statistics teaching? (check all that apply)
□ increases student learning/retention
□ reduces student anxiety
□ helps my popularity/ratings with students
□ builds classroom community
□ makes teaching more enjoyable for me
□ increases student engagement
□ other (please specify):_______________________
HESITATIONS
Which of the following are your main hesitations about using fun in your statistics teaching? (check all that apply)
□ no skills/talent
□ can’t quickly find good examples
□ weak evidence of helping student learning
□ uses too much class time
□ need to be perceived as serious by students
□ size of class
□ need to be perceived as serious by colleagues/supervisor
□ incompatibility with students’ cultures
□ other(please specify):________________________
CAUSEWEB.ORG
Have you used items from the “fun” resources collection at www.causeweb.org/resources/fun?
□ many times □ a few times □ once or twice □ no, but I’ve browsed
□ no, and I haven’t browsed □ no, and I didn’t know about this collection
I am open to being interviewed by phone about this topic
 □ no
□ yes (print e-mail)______________
THANK YOU!
249 (66% of 380) USCOTS ‘11 attendees responded
Openness to using fun
(N = 249 statistics instructors)
Motivations for using fun
(N = 249 statistics instructors)
Hesitations for using fun
(N = 249 statistics instructors)
?
but what about
student learning?
a classroom study (VanVoorhis, 2002)
2 equal-GPA sections of stats
Section R read 3 definitions aloud;
Section S sang 3 stat jingles (for same concepts)
S did better than R on relevant test items
p < .05
S had high correlation between test score and
self-rated jingle knowledge
p < .05
“What p-Value Means”
lyric © 2005 L. Lesser
tune: “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”
It is key to know
What p-value means –
It’s the chance
(with the null)
you obtain
data that’s
At least that extreme!
Research Challenges
• controlled conditions in a live classroom
• replicable treatment without instructor effect
• needing special skill/talent
SOLUTION:
• Insert fun item into context that can be
otherwise electronically duplicated (e.g.,
Garner, 2006; Özdoğru & McMorris, 2013)
2 examples
• Garner (2006):
N = 117 undergraduates review three 40minute lecture videos (in "distance education format") on statistics
research methods with or without humor(joke) inserts. Students
randomized to the insert group recalled significantly more information
and gave significantly higher ratings (each p < .001) in their opinion of
the lesson, how well the lesson communicated information, and quality
of the instructor.
• Özdoğru & McMorris (2013): N = 156 college students
randomized to one of two forms with six 1-page textbook-style
presentations; one form had cartoon insert in concepts #1,2,6 and the
other in 3,4,5. Students reported favorable (p < .001) attitudes for
cartoon inserts, but there was no effect on learning of concepts.
(urban) settings of Project UPLIFT’s
student-randomized experiment
Two-Year College
University (medium-size)
Region of U.S.
Southeast
Southwest
Student population
mostly Black
mostly Hispanic
Type of course
Statistical literacy
Statistical literacy
Main audience
General education
Pre-service teachers
Text
Sullivan (2014) Fundamentals of
Utts (2005) Seeing Through
Statistics: Informed Decisions Using Data
Statistics
Desire2Learn
Blackboard
LMS (Learning
management system)
student-randomized experiment
(fall 2013)
(53 from comm. college; 194 from medium-sized university)
• All students asked to take pre (and post)tests:
SATS (Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics), SAM (Statistics Anxiety Measure)
• Half of the students randomized to have “fun
inserts” in content readings accessed via LMS
• All students take midterms/finals with
embedded multiple-choice items related to the
(12-14) content readings, such as:
LMS screenshot (Desire2Learn) of
a mini-reading with fun item insert
(half the students were randomized to receive the same reading without the insert)
QUESTION:
Which of these modalities of fun
would be most effective
in increasing learning?
A) Cartoons
B) Poems
C) Quotes
D) Songs
% Correct with and without Song Inserts
Topic
Without song
With Song
Difference
Margin of error:
down with n
down by √n
57.3%
9.1%
61.3%
10.0%
4.0%
0.9%
Standard score
62.5%
75.0%
12.5%
Correlation & slope
60.2%
73.8%
13.6%
Equiprobability bias
40.9%
50.0%
9.1%
Multiplicity
36.1%
37.0%
0.9%
(medium university)
p-value
44.4%
50.0%
5.6%
(2-yr. college)
OVERALL
42.3%
50.0%
80% CI on total difference (2.8%, 12.6%) p-value ≈ 0.04
7.7%
QUESTION:
Why do you think
songs showed more effectiveness?
A) Time with material
B) Songs more engaging/active
C) More impact on memory
D) Other
Why did some fun items
appear more effective than others?
Spearman’s Rank Correlation of
“Effectiveness” with “Activeness”
from two independent raters:
0.61 and 0.66
QUESTION:
What dimension of the
Statistics Anxiety Measure(SAM)
should be affected most by fun?
A. Anxiety
B. Attitude Towards Class
C. Fearful Behavior
D. Attitude Towards Math
E. Performance
Post Course
avg ± se
SAM and Subscale Results (lower is better)
Measure/
Subscale
Control
n = 59
Fun
n = 53
Difference
SAM total
50.61 ± 1.51
49.08 ± 1.71
1.53
Anxiety
8.32 ± 0.44
7.53 ± 0.45
0.79
Attitude Towards
Class
7.17 ± 0.26
6.40 ± 0.28
0.77
Fearful Behavior
12.86 ± 0.42
12.64 ± 0.46
0.22
Attitude Towards Math
12.46 ± 0.73
12.25 ± 0.64
0.21
Performance
9.80 ± 0.36
10.26 ± 0.39
-0.46
QUESTION:
Which dimension of the
Student Attitudes Toward Statistics(SATS)
should be affected most by fun?
A. Affect
B. Cognitive
C. Value
D. Difficulty
E. Interest
Post Course
avg ± se
SATS Subscale Results (higher is better)
Measure/
Subscale
Control
n = 44
Fun
n = 44
Difference
Affect
4.11 ± 0.19
4.17 ± 0.21
0.06
Cognitive
4.66 ± 0.16
4.73 ± 0.28
0.06
Value
4.84 ± 0.15
4.46 ± 0.22
-0.36
Difficulty
3.74 ± 0.15
3.75 ± 0.17
-0.01
Interest
3.69 ± 0.21
3.89 ± 0.28
0.20
Effort
6.02 ± 0.20
6.06 ± 0.17
0.04
Future Directions
• Increase sample size by having more universities
• Assess more items and modalities;
• Have follow-up interviews to focus specifically on why
students found some items engaging and helpful and
others not
• Due to the low response rate in completing the SATS
and SAM inventories, online classes may result in a
higher participation rate in a future study. Since attitudes
are more difficult to change (ASA, 2012), future studies
will focus on student anxiety.
Diversity connections to fun
• Fun affected by specific diversities of
instructor and campus population
• Involves out-of-the-box alternative/diverse
perspectives
• Ethical/respectful fun builds community by
transcending labels that unduly separate us
• Avoid harmful stereotypes (e.g., my April
2014 Mathematics Teacher op-ed, inspired
by ……
jokes from
• “An attractive female accountant…”
• “…A young nursing student in the front row
sheepishly raised her hand and asked, “But
sir, why do nurses have to take statistics?”
“Young lady, statistics saves lives!...Statistics
keeps idiots out of the nursing profession!”
Notes on best practices
• Low risk - high risk continuum (Berk)
between and within modality types
• Ziv suggests 3-4 times per class period
• Recommendations for student-generated fun
(vs. instructor-generated)
• Network of practitioners to pool ideas and
add teacher-friendly scaffolding to existing
items/collections (interested? Email me!)
Key References
MY JOKES/STEREOTYPES OP-ED: April 2014 Mathematics Teacher, pp. 568-71.
RESEARCH ON HUMOR/FUN IN STATISTICS: collection of 500+ items: https://causeweb.org/resources/fun/
Lesser, Pearl, Reyes, Weber (2014). causeweb.org/ecots/ecots14/32/
Lesser, Wall, Carver, Pearl, Martin, Kuiper, Posner, Erickson, Liao, Albert, Weber (2013). Using fun in the
statistics classroom: An exploratory study of college instructors’ hesitations and motivations. Journal of
Statistics Education, 21(1), 1-33. http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v21n1/lesser.pdf (also, see
causeweb.org/webinar/jse/2013-08)
Lesser & Pearl (2008). Functional fun in statistics teaching: Resources, research, and recommendations.
Journal of Statistics Education, 16(3), 1-11. http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v16n3/lesser.pdf
RESEARCH ON HUMOR IN EDUCATION:
Banas, J. A., Dunbar, N., Rodriguez, D., & Liu, S.-J. (2011). A Review of Humor in Educational Settings: Four
Decades of Research. Communication Education, 60(1), 115-144.
AN INSPIRATION FOR THE EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN:
Garner, R. L. (2006). Humor in pedagogy: How ha-ha can lead to aha! College Teaching, 54(1), 177-180.
INSTRUMENTS (SAM and SATS):
Earp, M.A. (2007). Development and validation of the Statistics Anxiety Measure. University of Denver.
http://iase-web.org/documents/dissertations/07.Earp.Dissertation.pdf
Schau, C., Stevens, J., Dauphinee, T. L., & Del Vecchio, A. (1995). The development and validation of the
Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 55(5), 868-875.
thank you for attending
Using ‘Fun’ in the Statistics Classroom:
Research and Recommendations
Larry Lesser
The University of Texas at El Paso
Lesser@utep.edu
Tips for a great conference!
Rate this presentation on the
conference app
www.nctm.org/confapp
Download available presentation
handouts from the Online Planner!
www.nctm.org/planner
Join the conversation! Tweet us
using the hashtag
#NCTMHouston
2012 Grammy-winning
country song of the year
“Mean” (lyric © 2011 L. Lesser)
But it can get pulled off
by just one single point,
And you don’t know what you don’t know…
“Mean” (lyric © 2011 L. Lesser)
Sometimes, data have a real asymmetry
Or values that are really quite extreme.
In those cases, better use the median
If what’s typical is what you need –
That’s not gonna be the mean!
That won’t be the mean with outliers, just
forget it, do you see just what I mean
& mean & mean & mean….
“Mean” (lyric © 2011 L. Lesser)
Sometimes, data have a real asymmetry
Or values that are really quite extreme.
Yeah, yeah!
In those cases, better use the median
If the middle is what you need –
Not gonna be the mean!
my contributions to stats fun include:
• 30+ items (songs, jokes, poems, etc.) in
CAUSEweb.org fun resources collection
• fake study in fall 2012 Teaching Statistics
• articles in STATS(# 48,49), J. of Mathematics
and the Arts, Model Assisted Statistics and
Applications, J. of Irreproducible Results
• CAUSEweb webinar (2006)
• skit in Statistics Teacher Network no. 81
• USCOTS, including concert at 2013 banquet
• Media Clips (comics) in Mathematics Teacher
Project UPLIFT: three urban settings
Two-Year College
University (medium-size)
University (large)
Region of U.S. Southeast
Southwest
Midwest
Student
population
mostly Hispanic
general U.S.
demographic
Type of course Statistical literacy
Statistical literacy
Statistical literacy
Main audience General education
Pre-service teachers
Arts and humanities
Text
Sullivan (2014)
Utts (2005)
Moore & Notz (2013)
Fundamentals of
Statistics: Informed
Decisions Using Data
Seeing Through Statistics
Statistics: Concepts &
Controversies
Learning
management
system (LMS)
Desire2Learn
Blackboard
Desire2Learn
Unit of
randomization
student
student
item
mostly Black
item-randomized experiment
(spring 2014)
(≈ 1000 from larger university)
• Students take pre- and post- SATS; SAM;
and START(Statistical Thinking and Reasoning Test)
• Students see 8 content items with each item
randomized to include fun insert or not
• All students take midterm (3 items) and final
(5 items) with embedded multiple-choice
items related to the content readings
Qualitative Data
(beyond scope of this 30-minute session)
• Spring 2013 case study:
Extreme case sampling (fun-experienced
instructor) at medium-sized university, using
multiple data sources: field notes or
transcripts from 5 observations; six 1-on-1
student interviews; end-of-course ratings
and narrative comments from 21 students
• Fall 2013 data: eight 1-on-1 student
interviews from two-year college