Statistics Jeopardy

An intro-stats review running from means and medians to p-values, made for class-wide play. Cloning the board is free; buzzing happens on phones.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

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Describing Data

$200
This measure of central tendency is found by adding all values and dividing by the number of values.
What is the mean?
$400
This measure of central tendency is the middle value when data are ordered from least to greatest.
What is the median?
$600
This measure of spread is the difference between the third and first quartiles of a data set.
What is the interquartile range?
$800
This graphical display uses a box and whiskers to show a data set's median, quartiles, and range.
What is a boxplot?
$1,000
This measure of spread describes, on average, how far each data point lies from the mean.
What is the standard deviation?

Probability

$200
This numerical measure, ranging from 0 to 1, expresses how likely an event is to occur.
What is probability?
$400
Two events have this property when the outcome of one has no effect on the outcome of the other.
What is independence?
$600
This rule finds the probability of two independent events both occurring by multiplying their individual probabilities.
What is the multiplication rule?
$800
This value represents the probability of an event occurring given that another event has already occurred.
What is conditional probability?
$1,000
This theorem describes how to update the probability of a hypothesis based on new evidence.
What is Bayes' theorem?

Distributions

$200
This type of variable can take on a countable number of distinct values, such as the number of siblings someone has.
What is a discrete variable?
$400
This distribution describes the number of successes in a fixed number of independent trials, each with the same probability of success.
What is a binomial distribution?
$600
In a normal distribution, this rule states that roughly 68, 95, and 99.7 percent of data fall within one, two, and three standard deviations of the mean.
What is the empirical rule?
$800
This value tells how many standard deviations a data point lies from the mean.
What is a z-score?
$1,000
This theorem states that the sampling distribution of the sample mean approaches a normal shape as sample size grows, regardless of the population's shape.
What is the central limit theorem?

Sampling and Experiments

$200
This sampling method gives every member of the population an equal chance of being selected.
What is a simple random sample?
$400
In an experiment, this variable is deliberately changed by the researcher to observe its effect.
What is the independent variable?
$600
This practice of assigning subjects to treatment groups by chance helps ensure the groups are comparable before treatment.
What is random assignment?
$800
This type of bias occurs when a sample systematically excludes or underrepresents part of the population.
What is sampling bias?
$1,000
In this experimental design, neither the subjects nor the researchers interacting with them know who received the real treatment.
What is a double-blind design?

Confidence Intervals

$200
This term describes a range of plausible values, computed from sample data, that is likely to contain a population parameter.
What is a confidence interval?
$400
This value, subtracted from and added to a point estimate to build a confidence interval, reflects sampling variability.
What is the margin of error?
$600
This confidence level, the most common one used in practice, means that in repeated sampling about that percent of such intervals would contain the true parameter.
What is a 95 percent confidence level?
$800
Holding other factors constant, increasing this quantity narrows a confidence interval.
What is the sample size?
$1,000
This distribution, with heavier tails than the normal distribution, is used to construct confidence intervals for a mean when the population standard deviation is unknown.
What is the t-distribution?

Hypothesis Tests

$200
This statement, assumed true until evidence suggests otherwise, typically claims there is no effect or no difference.
What is the null hypothesis?
$400
This probability measures how likely it would be to observe results at least as extreme as the sample data if the null hypothesis were true.
What is the p-value?
$600
This error occurs when a hypothesis test rejects a true null hypothesis.
What is a Type I error?
$800
This error occurs when a hypothesis test fails to reject a false null hypothesis.
What is a Type II error?
$1,000
This measure of an experiment's ability to detect a true effect equals one minus the probability of a Type II error.
What is statistical power?

Final Jeopardy — The Bell Curve

Named for a German mathematician, this symmetric bell-shaped distribution is completely determined by its mean and standard deviation.

What is the normal distribution?

How to run this board

Statistics vocabulary is slippery, and students who can compute a confidence interval often cannot say what one means. This board leans on concepts over computation, with categories for describing data, probability, distributions, sampling and experiments, confidence intervals, and hypothesis tests.

It suits an intro course at any level, from AP Stats to a college methods section. Project the board, hand every team a phone, and read clues aloud as they open.

Best tip: ban formulas from answers. If a team can only respond with symbols, they have memorized the recipe without tasting the dish.

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