Instructor Notes

Douglas Shafer and Zhiyi Zhang’s Introductory Statistics provides a valuable open access resource for introducing students to the basics of statistical analysis. The first two sections of their textbook–”Basic Definitions and Concepts” (link) and “Overview” (link)–offer students a first introduction to basic assumptions and key terminology for statistical analysis. The reading discusses, for example, the distinction between a population and a sample, parameters and statistics, qualitative and quantitative data, and descriptive and inferential statistics, among other topics. The material is here presented as a valuable reading for helping students begin developing their ability to analyze data. Shafer and Zhang’s introductory chapter is also useful for helping students define data and critique data.

Shafer and Zhou provide a set of exercises at the end of their first chapter, Section 1.E “Introduction to Statistics (Exercises)” (link). Choose four or five of these exercises–for example, questions number 7, 8, 9, 11, and 13 would work well–and develop a brief “discussion quiz.” A discussion quiz seeks not so much to assess learning–though it can be used for such a purpose–as to prompt students to reflect on and to be able to articulate the key concepts covered in the reading. For multiple questions, have students answer these questions on their own. Once they’ve completed (and if you wish, submitted) their answers, ask students to gather in small groups and discuss each question to develop a collective answer. Where appropriate, ask students not only to identify the right answer, but also to explain why they didn’t choose the others.