A Gentle Introduction to Histograms: Visualizing Central Tendency to Understand Skew and Sensitivity to Extremes

Abstract

The activity assigns random incomes/professions to students in order for them to be able to visualize a sample distribution and understand how to interpret histograms. The first part of the activity has 9 student volunteers who visualize a simple number line in front of the class based on their randomly assigned incomes. By omitting and introducing...

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Details

Subject Area(s):

Quantitative Methodology, Statistics

Resource Type(s):

Class Activity

Class Level(s):

College 100, College 200

Class Size(s):

Any, Medium

Usage Notes

One of the main goals of this activity is to include every student in the visualized distribution. This activity is ready to be used for a medium sized class (approximately 50 students) but, becuase class sizes vary, data are included to easily modify visualizations and income/profession assignments for smaller or larger classes.

Learning Goals and Assessments

Learning Goal(s):

1. Demonstrate ability to calculate and interpret measures of central tendency
   
   
2. Articulate the concept of the mean’s sensitivity to extreme values
3. Understand sample distributions and histograms
4. Identify skewed distributions using histograms

Goal Assessment(s):

1. Students demonstrate their knowledge through discussion of a variety of sample characteristics and data visualizations provided in the resource materials