Statistics Blogs

For most of my professional career I taught graduate statistics as part of my teaching load. Growing up, I was not a good math student. During my third graduate statistics class at Purdue I was tutoring a first-year student at the request of my graduate advisor.  While I would describe my understanding of statistics as poor at that point (a B student who memorized formulae), during the tutoring light bulbs came on. Statistics became more accessible from that point on, and my dissertation was heavily statistical. I will write about that aha moment in a blog post, but what is important is that the experience guided me to focus on the concepts that guide the statistical math. Understanding the basic concepts helps the student understand the structure and logic of statistics...as well as the limitations (e.g., just because something is "statistically significant" doesn't mean that it is important).  Blogs in this section will highlight some key concepts of statistical analysis and highlight the critical importance of internally validating study findings.