Tag Archives: statistics

Demographics and subject choice

What does your choice of A Level subjects say about you? Could I work out what sort of school you went to, based on your choice of A Levels? The DCSF pub­lishes figures on the uptake of A Level courses. It … Continue reading

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Fruit Gums and graphs

All the data from my Fruit Gums exper­i­ment has one con­tinuous variable (the number of gums) and one discrete variable variable (either box number or flavour) so the physicist’s standard graph  —  the x-y scatter plot  —  isn’t suitable. This made it a good … Continue reading

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Teaching statistics with Fruit Gums

Fruit Gums can be used to demon­strate the concept of standard devi­ation. Cal­cu­lating standard devi­ation is easy, it’s simply: Which, with the right teaching, and enough practice, anyone can learn to do. Under­standing what standard devi­ation means is far more dif­fi­cult. I … Continue reading

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