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26 January 2006

Stats Games

Jens Hainmueller

January is exam period at Harvard. Since exams are usually pretty boring, I sometimes get distracted from learning by online games. Recently, I found a game that may even be (partly) useful for exam preparation, at least for an intro stats class. Yes, here it is a computer game about statistics: StatsGames. StatsGame is a collection of 20 games or challenges designed to playfully test and refine your statistical thinking. As the author of StatsGames, economist Gary Smith, admits: "These games are not a substitute for a statistics course, but they may give you an enjoyable opportunity to develop your statistical reasoning." The program is free and runs on all platforms. Although the graphical makeup somewhat reminds me of the days when games were still played on Atari computers, most of the games in the collection are really fun. My favorites include the Batting Practice (a game to teach students to use the binomial distribution to test the hypothesis whether you are equally likely to swing late or early) and the Stroop effect (a game featuring a simple cognitive science type experiment which is then evaluated using the F-test). I also enjoyed the simulation of Galton's Apparatus. Go check it out! But don't waste too much exam preparation time of course - and good luck if you have any exams soon! I also wonder whether there are other computer games about statistics out there. Any ideas?

Posted by Jens Hainmueller at January 26, 2006 6:00 AM

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