| Website | https://www.minedogucu.com |
| Book | https://www.bayesrulesbook.com |
| https://twitter.com/MineDogucu | |
| https://www.linkedin.com/in/minedogucu |
ICYMI from my other social media accounts in the past, we released the first five chapters of our new book, Hello Data Science. It is a fully open-access resource written for beginners. Please help us spread the word!
🔗 www.hellodata.science
🔔 New preprint w/ Catalina Medina
❓ We ran a quasi-experiment in an introductory stats course to see if giving students a choice of real data context on homework actually has impact
📄 Engaging students with statistics through choice of real data context on homework
🔗 https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.04541
👍 Our recs based on our findings are
1️⃣ use real data with authentic contexts,
2️⃣ select contexts students care about
3️⃣ incorporate variety across data contexts
4️⃣ consider choice as a pedagogical tool.
Statistics educators recommend teaching with real data with relevant contexts, but defining relevancy is challenging and varies by student. We investigated whether providing student choice of data context increases engagement through a quasi-experiment in two sections of an introductory probability and statistics course at a large public university (n=65 consenting students). Sections alternated as treatment and control: during their treatment, students chose weekly homework from three similar instructor-provided options varying by data context; during control weeks, they received randomly assigned contexts. We found no significant difference in homework grades between treatment and control conditions. However, thematic analysis revealed students with choice reported enhanced engagement and motivation, greater appreciation for statistics' real-world value, and increased autonomy. Students overwhelmingly preferred contexts relevant to their interests, experiences, daily lives, and career paths-though preferences varied considerably across individuals. Based on these findings, we provide four recommendations for statistics educators: (1) use real data with authentic contexts, (2) select contexts students care about, (3) incorporate variety across data contexts, and (4) consider choice as a pedagogical tool.
Statisticians: We really need to move past the cult of p < 0.05. Science is about nuance, not just arbitrary thresholds!
Also Statisticians (reading a qualitative study): Wait, n=12? This isn't science, it’s an anecdote. Where is the power analysis??
📚Coming soon: Chapters from our open-access book "Hello Data Science," based on our intro courses across three institutions!
📦 We released the early version of the #rstats package with datasets. Find it on GitHub (on its way to CRAN):
https://github.com/hellodata-science/hellodatascience
New blog post
We read many data science education papers so that you don’t have to
https://www.datapedagogy.com/posts/2025-05-17-ds-ed/ds-ed-paper
I don't teach in Spring and it's the season of giving talks. I have a GitHub repo for each set of slides. Many procedural tasks became so repetitive over time that I created a template repo for my talks. #QuartoPub and #rstats users might possibly find it useful.
It is recommendation letter writing season. Resharing my blog post:
Tips on Recommendation Letters for Students and Instructors
https://www.datapedagogy.com/posts/2023-07-19-tips-rec-letters/tips-rec-letters
Sharing a few resources on the {gradetools} package in #rstats in this latest blog post
Automated Grading Workflow in the Statistics/Data Science Classroom
https://www.datapedagogy.com/posts/2024-07-29-gradetools/gradetools
Aki Vehtari