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Historian Andrew Lang said that some people use statistics "as a drunken man uses lampposts-for support rather than illumination." The number of students enrolled in statistics classes has increased in recent years. With the advent of calculators and computers, statistical analysis is occurring at an unprecedented rate, and its study has become an essential component of high school and college education. Ability, interest, and motivation vary greatly among elementary statistics students. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how fictitious anecdotes, especially humorous ones, can be used to teach statistical concepts effectively and to dispel some common misconceptions in statistics. Humorous vignettes help instigate classroom discussions by kindling the interest of the students and eliciting multiple responses from them. More important, anecdotes can be used to demonstrate the relevance of statistics to everyday situations. This anecdotal approach is an especially helpful tool in motivating a diverse student body with a wide variety of mathematical backgrounds.
REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLES
Millions of alien abductions?
Professor Ima Klutz was doing research on individuals who claim to have been abducted by aliens from other planets. Professor Klutz sent out 2 million questionnaires, and respondents returned 100 000. The questionnaire included such items as "In the last thirty days, how many aliens from other planets have you encountered?" Professor Klutz has discussed his research on various television talk shows. On the basis of his research, he claims that 30 percent of Americans have encountered aliens. Indeed, he insists that 20 percent of Americans claim to have been forcibly abducted, and 10 percent of respondents claim to have been molested by these aliens from other planets. Other panelists on the television show challenged his research. Professor Klutz's response was that the Gallup poll and other wellknown polls are based on samples of 2 000 individuals, whereas the Klutz study was based on 100 000 respondents.
Students are asked to think about this fictional anecdote and decide whether Professor Klutz's research is valid. This anecdote can be used to illustrate that it is not the number of responses that matter but the rate of response. Students can also be taught the important idea of representative samples. In general, those who respond to surveys are very interested in the subject of the...