This is a quarter-long mentoring program where each graduate student mentors an undergraduate on some topic of their own choice. A detailed introduction to the program is shown below: https://spa-drp.github.io/.

I have mentored two students and the topics are shown below.

Statistical Illusion

Description

Do you know that there is a “statistically significant” relationship between your salary and if you pee at night? Do you know that you will always wait longer than others at a bus stop? Do you know that a lot of the statistical concepts you learned in class actually don’t make sense? In this quarter-long study, we will dive into some common misconceptions about statistics and the questions of how to interpret statistics. We will touch on a wide range of statistical topics from a paradoxical view and learn the intuition behind them. No prior knowledge of statistics is required but motivation is encouraged.

Notes by week

Week 1: Monty Hall problem

**Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what’s behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, “Do you want to pick door No. 2?” Is it to your advantage to switch your choice? **

References: Link1, Link2

Week 2: Friendship Paradox

References: Link1, Link2

Week 3: Simpson’s Paradox

References: Link

Week 4: Gambler’s Fallacy

References: Link

Week 5: Waiting time paradox

References: Link

Week 6: Certainty and possibility effects

References: Link1, Link2, Link3

Week 7: Interpretation of statistics

References: Notes