Computing in the Mathematical Statistics Course

Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Statistical Association, August 5-9, 2001We have developed a model for teaching math- ematical statistics through detailed case studies, and we have had some success with students us- ing the R and S-Plus languages to analyze data from the cases and to perform simulation studies of statistical concepts underlying the methods used in the analyses. We describe a few examples of these simulation studies, and explain how we use the computer to bridge the gap between statistical theory and practice and to develop understanding of the the basic ideas in mathematical statistics. Recently, we have embarked on a new approach that builds on the work of the Omegahat project (www.omegahat.org), which has embedded the R statistical software in the Netscape browser. We are designing interactive environments for browsers that use R for performing computations and plot- ting. The goal is to develop electronic activities that will make it easier for students to explore and develop understanding of the concepts of statistics and that will connect these concepts to the practice of statistics