About Statistics in Action: Understanding a World of Data

A Closer Look

Statistics in Action is designed for an introductory college statistics course and includes all of the standard topics for that course. Beginning in Chapter 1 with a court case about age discrimination, you and your students will be immersed in real problems that can be solved only with statistical methods. You students will learn to

• explore, summarize, and display data
• design surveys and experiments
• use probability to understand random behavior
• make inferences about populations by looking at samples from those populations
• make inferences about the effect of treatments from designed experiments

Statistical work is more hands-on than it was a generation ago. Computers and graphing calculators have automated the graphical exploration of data, and in the process have made the practice of statistics a more visual enterprise. Statistical techniques are also changing— simulations allow statisticians (and you) to shift the emphasis from simply plugging data into a standard set of calculations to thinking more creatively about the subject area described by the data. Instructors who select Statistics in Action do so because they

• want students to learn this modern, data-analytic approach to statistics
• encourage students to be an active participant in the classroom
• want students to see real data
• believe that statistical analyses must be tailored to the data
• use graphing calculators or statistical software for data analysis and for simulations

Throughout the textbook you will see many graphical displays, lots of real data, activities that introduce each major topic, actual computer printouts, questions for you to discuss with your class, and practice problems so you can be sure your students understand the basics before you move on. These features grow out of the vigorous changes that have been reshaping the practice of statistics and the teaching of statistics over the last quarter century.

The most basic question to ask about any data set is, "Where did the data come from?" Good data for statistical analysis must come from a good plan for data collection. Thus, Statistics in Action gives an honest and thorough treatment to the design and analysis of both experiments and surveys.

Statistics in Action is different from other textbooks because your students will learn by doing. They’ll discover the important concepts themselves and further develop their understanding by discussing the concepts they have discovered. Your close guidance is indispensable—you’ll help them stay on track, add emphasis to important discoveries, compare cases, distinguish issues, and connect the ideas they accumulate. Simply reading the textbook will not be sufficient; by doing the activities in class or in a lab period, students will have the opportunity to apply ideas, think critically, and articulate issues in group conversation and in debate over discussion questions, just as statisticians do in field practice.