Description

Overview:

Dawson (1995) presented a data set giving a population at risk and fatalities for an “unusual episode” (the sinking of the ocean liner Titanic) and discussed the use of the data set in a first statistics course as an elementary exercise in statistical thinking, the goal being to deduce the origin of the data. Simonoff (1997) discussed the use of this data set in a second statistics course to illustrate logistic regression. Moore (2000) used an abbreviated form of the data set in a chapter exercise on the chi-square test. This article describes an activity that illustrates contingency table (two-way table) analysis. Students use contingency tables to analyze the “unusual episode” data (from Dawson 1995) and attempt to use their analysis to deduce the origin of the data. The activity is appropriate for use in an introductory college statistics course or in a high school AP statistics course.

Subject:

Statistics and Probability

Level:

Community College / Lower Division, College / Upper Division

Material Type:

Activity/Lab

Author:

Mary Richardson, Grand Valley State University

Provider:

Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education

Provider Set:

Causeweb.org

Date Added:

02/16/2011