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Instructors' Guide for Facilitating
Activity
Activity Hand_size: Is hand size a good
prediction of height?
Required Equipment
• Computers for each student to
conduct the online data collection
• A pass code for this activity (If you do not have this, please
register
for a pass
code.)
• Rulers to measure palm size
• Yard stick or tape measurer for
measuring height
Activity
This activity is designed to help students learn the
relationship of two or more variables, the graphical and
numerical techniques for describing and interpreting the
relationship and to help students learn the basic
concepts of statistical modeling. Some of these basic
concepts include learning the least square method,
distinguishing causality vs. non-causality relationships and
identifying outlying cases and determining whether these
outlying cases are influential.
Suggested Approach and Some Tips for
Facilitating This Activity
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1. |
Describe
this activity as a scenario.
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Human height is determined partly by genetics and
nutrition. How is hand size determined? Does
a taller individual also have a larger hand size?
Is hand size a good predictor of height? Is the
relationship between hand size and height different
between males and females? You are assigned this
project to build a model using your hand size to predict
height.
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2. |
Engage
students in the data measurement and data collection
stage.
• Ask students how they believe they should measure
hand size. Anticipate
various ways of
measuring hand size such as "by the surface area", "by the
length
from the thumb to the little finger when the hand is
expanded", and "by
the length from the top of the middle finger to
the wrist," etc.
• Ask students how they would measure the surface
area. At this time, point
out the difficulty in
measuring the surface area due to the irregular shape of
the hand.
• Lead students to methods that are repeatable and
easier to measure, such as
those measures
described in the data entry page;
measure hand size by
measuring the length
from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the
pinky when
you expand your hand as much as you can.
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3. |
Choose to
participate in the activity or use the data collected
by other classes. If you only want to use the data
collected by other classes, you may go to step 4 "Data
Downloads".
Otherwise, direct students to the
Data Entry page for
collecting the hand size and height data.
• Provide students the Activity 2 pass code.
• Provide students a one-foot ruler.
• Stress that each student can only enter the data
once. Ask them to double
check their data before
submission.
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4. |
Direct
students to the Data Download
page. Direct students to follow your instruction
in downloading the
data. As described on the page, you have different
choices for downloading the data. Please be
specific so that your class will obtain the same data
set.
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5. |
Direct
students to analyze the data.
You should have chosen what statistical tool your class
will be using for analyzing the data.
• You may use the software your local computer lab has.
• You may use the online software, "Crunch_It"
at
http://www.statcrunch.com/. For first time
users, direct students to sign on
to the
site. Please stress that students need to remember their
own ID and
password.
• Direct students to input
the data and analyze the data. Be more focused on
what
tools are to be used for analyzing this data based on
the purpose of
this activity.
Suggested
Questions for Classroom Activities
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6. |
Facilitate
the discussion of the results.
• Facilitating the discussion of the results should
focus on
the related context and applications.
• This activity can be used to introduce models with
both qualitative (gender) and quantitative
(hand length)
predictors as stated in the suggested
problem 15.
• This activity can also be used to introduce the
concept of
muliticollinearity by using both hand
length and hand width
as predictors as stated in the suggested
problem 16.
• Another use for this activity would be to introduce
the
basic techniques of variable selection by
including gender,
hand width, andhand length as predictors.
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7. |
Assessment:
Online Self-Test for Students
Suggested Questions for
Classroom Activities
Suggested Questions for Homework and Projects |
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