Is a Basketball Free-throw Sequence Nonrandom? A Group Exercise for Undergraduate Statistics Students

Authors

Stephen C. Adolph, Harvey Mudd CollegeFollow

Document Type

Article

Department

Biology (HMC)

Publication Date

2007

Abstract

I describe a group exercise that I give to my undergraduate biostatistics class. The exercise involves analyzing a series of 200 consecutive basketball free-throw attempts to determine whether there is any evidence for sequential dependence in the probability of making a free-throw. The students are given the exercise before they have learned the appropriate statistical tests, so that they can come up with ideas on their own. Students spend a full class period working on the problem, with my guidance and hints. In the next class period, we discuss how each student group approached the problem. I then present several alternative ways to analyze the data, including a runs test and a contingency table analysis of transition frequencies.

Comments

Previously linked to as: http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/u?/irw,424.

Publisher's pdf downloaded from journal's website.

Published by the American Statistical Association.

Article may be found at www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v15n3/datasets.adolph.html

Rights Information

© 2007 Stephen C. Adolph

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Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Recommended Citation

Adolph, Stephen C. "Is a basketball free-throw sequence nonrandom? A group exercise for undergraduate statistics students." Journal of Statistics Education 15.3 (2007).