Blind Taste Testing

A zesty (umami-filled?) activity to introduce hypothesis testing. I'll use this on Day 1 of hypothesis testing, before students have learned any formal procedures, formulas, or vocabulary. The goal is to leave students ~feeling~ the idea of statistical significance, wondering about ways to formalize it, and asking whether or not Mark is a real person (he is!). Fun fact: the context of blind taste testing goes wayyy back with hypothesis testing. A blind taste test experiment from 1935 involving eight cups of tea, a woman named Muriel Bristol, and famous statistician Ronald Fisher was the origin of Fisher's ideas around formulating hypotheses and testing for statistical significance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_tasting_tea Find me on Twitter: @kevinji

By Kevin Ji