Calculator Statistics

Author(s): Alan Graham

Source: Mathematics in School, Vol. 32, No. 5 (Nov., 2003), pp. 16-17
Published by: The Mathematical Association
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Calcult31
Calcult31
by Alan Graham

Many teachers find the graphics calculator to be a powerful
aid in the teaching of graphs and graphing. Unfortunately,
the name 'graphics calculator' gives no hint of the potential
benefits that this exciting mathematical micro-world can
offer in teaching and learning topics beyond graphs. A good
example where its potential remains largely untapped is
statistics.
This article spells out three key features of the graphics
calculator that can make the job of statistics teachers and
learners easier as well as muchmore enjoyable. The examples
(and cartoons) have all been taken from the book 'Calculator
Statistics'. The book has been written specifically for the
Texas Instruments TI-83 family of calculators but the ideas
could easily be adapted for other makes and models that had
the appropriatestatistical facilities.
Settle Down Please
Initial lessons on probability often start with tossing coins
and rolling dice. Although potentially useful, this can easily
descend into noisy chaos. An even bigger worry about such
lessons is the mistaken beliefs that they can foster in
students. For example, they may lend credence to the 'Law
of Small Numbers', which is the (mistaken) belief that all
small samples accurately reflect the characteristics of the
population from which they were taken. As a result, students
can easily come away from such a lesson with incorrect or
incomplete concepts that can get in the way of later learning.
For example, after, say, thirty rolls of a die, you may hear
remarks such as: "I told you six is hard to get!"
I prefer
to r( my
own
By exploiting the calculator's randInt command, ten or
thirty or one hundred 'virtual coins' can be tossed in a trice
and the mean number of heads calculated. Each time
<ENTER> is pressed, a new sequence of values is generated
and the proportion of heads immediately calculated and
displayed on the home screen. The speed and ease of
generating these results allows the students to give their full
attention to the following two important awarenesses. That:
* whichever sample size is chosen, there is always some
degree of variation, ...
* ... but with a sample size as large as 100, there is a clear
settling-down effect.
mean~randInt<07
.5
~"0'si
..645 57
o64
646
These ideas are developed in the next features of calculator
use in statistics - helping students to focus on the 'big ideas'.
What's the Big Idea?
In the past, the burden of calculation often obscured the
students' capacity to focus on the big ideas of statistics. Used
sensibly, the graphics calculator can release both student
time and energy so that they can step back from the number-
crunching and focus on underlying patterns and principles.
A big idea in statistics is the much misunderstood Central
Limit Theorem. At the heart of the theorem is the notion
; that sample means exhibit greater variability when based on
sampling with small sample sizes than would be expected if
the samples were larger.

PROGRAM: SPREAD
If these are :m
i:L1
( rand Int
eua((v Ulke(vN(
"Litg
a93
1,For(C,
100)+Li17,20)
an (C)"- (0, 1
: mean(randlInt (O,
eat r0y 1,10) (C)
b a - + 0+ e i r eseo s
*
c.
End
. i 1:

The program SPREAD shown here allows students to

generate samples of simulated data with varying sample size
(in this case of sizes 100 and 10, respectively) and to
or, after thirty tosses of a coin: "But they don't look equally calculate their means. These sample means are stored into
likely!" and so on. two lists which are then displayed graphically.

16 Mathematics in School, November 2003 The MAweb site www.m-a.org.uk

 Each time SPREAD is executed, two boxplots are displayed,
corresponding to the two sample sizes. And students will
observe that, on each occasion, the same basic pattern results
- the spread of sample means for n = 10 is always
considerably greater than the spread for samples where
n= 100.
FormattingThinking
The composer Igor Stravinsky expressed the view that, "the
more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self".
He believed that creativity required boundaries within
which it maybe expressed and indeed argued that, "the
arbitrarinessof the constraint serves only to obtain precision
of execution".
Students of statistics often report a corresponding inability
to express themselves creatively without the aid of structure!
When it comes to performing some of the more advanced
statistical calculations such as finding a confidence interval
or carryingout a test of significance, they are often unable to
make a start.
The graphics calculator provides a structured micro-world
within which students can take that first creative step.
Concepts are encapsulated in symbols that are clearly
defined and available for further examination and
exploration. For example, it is a great source of confusion in
statistics that there are two meanings of the word 'sigma'.
Capital sigma, I, refers to 'the sum of', while lower-case
sigma, (, means the standarddeviation. This distinction may
seem trivial to the expert statistician but for the novice it is
a boon to be able to access these measures directly on the
calculator and work out exactly what they represent.
So, little sigma is
standarddeviation;
big sigma means
'sum of'!
26.67812254
Ix1a
S
-
As well as reflecting standard mathematical notation, the
menu structure of the graphics calculator also reflects
standard methods.Each menu provides a set of choices that
students must take when carrying out a particular
procedure. Each setting represents a key decision to be made
when carrying out the procedure and, in a sense, the entire
menu encompasses a neat summary of what the procedure is
all about. I would suggest that when students work through
a calculator menu choosing appropriate settings from the
screen, they are subconsciously absorbing the main elements
that constitute the topic in question - in fact, the calculator
is helping to 'format their thinking'. Here are two examples,
the first fairly simple and the second more advanced.
The STATPLOT screen opposite is the menu that
students must 'set' when plotting a statistical graph (in this
case lists L3 and L4 are to be plotted as a scatterplot. After
switching the plot On (line 1), they are faced with a choice
of six possible types of plot. Having chosen the second of
these (the scatterplot), the screen automatically alters and
they are immediately presented with not one but two lists
Mathematicsin School, November 2003 The MAweb site www.m-a.org.uk
(Xlist and Ylist). These stages help to form a subliminal
awareness in the student's mind that this particular type of
representation is suitable only for bi-variate data.
i lotS MtU
...o, O 3) 46 g
Tvp e- -' =
X1ist0--3
Vlist:L4
Mark:
Z-Test
InPt Data IlMI
a:5.7
7:28.2
n: 35
<v
>
Iate Drjaw
x'TCacul-
0C:F.4ffl
The second more sophisticated example shows the choices
to be made when carrying out a statistical test of significance
(the Z-test). Working systematically through the menu line
by line enables students to learn that, when conducting a Z-
test, they need to make the following choices; firstly whether
the test is to be applied to data (that might be stored in a list
or lists) or will be entered in the form of summary statistics
(line 1). Having in this case chosen 'Statistics', they are now
presented with settings choices that define the Z-test
(population mean, population standard deviation, sample
mean and sample size). Next, crucially, they need to make a
choice as to whether they are using a two-tailed test (#o0) or
a one-tailed test (either < io or > to).
Z-Test
z= - 1.868235721
P=.0617290941
x=28.2
n=35
Fi " . P:.O6?
-6I-
Finally, they can choose either to see a calculated summary
of the test values (the Calculate option) or see the results
represented visually (the Draw option). Both of these final
displays are shown above.
CalculatorStatistics - The Book
For many years I have worked with students from 11 years
upwards using the graphics calculator in a range of
mathematical situations, and have always been convinced
that this machine has much to offer learners of mathematics.
But the writing of 'CalculatorStatistics'has provided my co-
author Barrie Galpin and myself with the opportunity to
think with greater precision about the learning benefits that
are particular to statistics and how the calculator can help to
build a bridge between the learner and the statistical ideas
they are grappling with.
CalculatorStatisticsis one of three books for A level published
by A+B Books (Tel: 01780 444360), the other two being
Calculator Calculus and Calculator Graphing. For more
information about these and other calculator-basedclassroom
resources published by A+B Books, see our web site
(Web: www.AplusB.co.uk)
Keywords: Statistics; Graphing calculators; Simulation.
Author
Alan Graham is a lecturer in mathematics education at the Centre for
Mathematics Education, The Open University. He is also the 'A' in A+B
Books. 23 Waller Street, Leamington Spa CV32 5UE
e-mail: a.t.graham@oopen.ac.uk
17