Robert Dawson said that one of his approaches to dealing with z test is to
treat it as a historical anecdote. I like that approach and must give it
a try.
But this approach made me think about artifacts in statistics. What are
list members views on teaching students to use tables. In the computer
age, tables are an anachronism. The vast majority of students will never
use a t table. They will just rely on the computer to print the p value.
And those rare students that might want to check something on a table will
probably be the ones who know enough stats so that they can quickly figure
out how to read a table. Does fussing with tables get in the way of
students' understanding hypothesis testing or do tables help?
I am interested to hear the views of list members.
Paul W. Jeffries
Department of Psychology
SUNY--Stony Brook
Stony Brook NY 11794-2500
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