Leitner

Learn statistics by resampling your own data

Most statistics courses hand you a formula for the standard error before you have any picture of what it estimates, and from there everything is symbol-pushing. The idea underneath is simpler and can be watched: if you could run the study again you would get a different answer, and the spread of those answers is what every interval is about. You cannot run it again — but you can resample what you have, which is what the block below does.

Resample your own measurements with replacement. The means pile up, and the middle 95% of them is a confidence interval.

Statistics · resamplingNO DRAWS YET
YOUR SAMPLE · 18 REACTION TIMESDASHED: MEAN 275 MSMEANS OF 0 RESAMPLES229 MSONE SCALE, TOP AND BOTTOM347 MS
sample mean275 msse5.9 ms

These 18 dots are the whole study: one set of reaction times, and no way to run it again. Draw a resample — 18 of these same measurements, taken with replacement — and watch which dots it picks.

Start a statistics planThe first lesson of every plan is free

What people come here to do

You describe the goal in your own words and it asks questions back until the plan is one you would actually follow. These are the shapes that goal usually takes.

  • Pass a statistics module I have been avoiding
  • Understand the tests my dissertation needs
  • Stop copying R output I cannot explain
  • Read the statistics in papers in my own field

What a statistics plan covers

Not a fixed syllabus — the plan is built around your goal and cuts what does not serve it. These are the topics it draws from, and whatever you get wrong comes back until it stops coming back.

Distributions, spread and what a standard deviation is
Sampling, standard error and the bootstrap
Confidence intervals and what they do not say
Hypothesis tests, p-values and their misreadings
Regression, fit and residuals
Study design, power and sample size

Other subjects

The mechanics are the same whatever the subject — a slider is a slider whether it is moving a coefficient or a rate of return. What changes is what it is a slider for.

Or see how it works and what it costs.