The site contains a vast historical overview of the Salem Witchcraft Trials. Interspersed throughout, the author leads students in an examination of the data via graphs and tables, and gives an analysis of the results and how they affect our understanding of the trials.
Type of Material:
Case Study
Recommended Uses:
In class discussion if students read the background information on the website beforehand. Homework could be assigned if the instructor writes more specific questions to accompany the data sets.
Technical Requirements:
Browser required for the website. Works in Firefox, Safari and IE. Data sets are tab-delineated text (.txt) format. Opens correctly Excel 2011. Imported successfully into Fathom.
Identify Major Learning Goals:
The goal is "learning by doing," using data from the Salem Witch Trials to pose and answer questions which can be answered by analyzing graphs created from the data. As the author states it, the learning goal of this case study is “to think about history, particularly in analytic and quantitative way."
Target Student Population:
Introductory level statistics students (either college or high school). Particularly good for social science statistics classes.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
Students should have a basic familiarity with histograms and scatterplots. The case study introduces line charts and contingency tables as well. All of the graphs are explained on the website, but it may be helpful if students have seen some of the graphs previously.
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
There is an outstanding amount of well-researched information presented. The data that is used and presented is very easy to follow and there are plenty of example graphs of the data if for some reason students have trouble creating their own. Each variable used is very well explained.
Concerns:
The histograms generated by Excel have gaps between the bars and an unnecessary “more” category. Some of the scatterplots are really time series plots. The website is poorly organized. There’s no clear structure for where links within each page go, and it is very easy to get lost if you start following links. The actual statistics is very light; only simple graphs are created and the analysis is very superficial.
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
This allows students to think of data in a real world context and to make numerical arguments where there aren’t necessarily right answers. The website posits many reasons why certain trends appear, but these are based on a small amount of historical documents. This also exposes students to the realities of historical data, i.e. the issues of missing records, duplicate records, conflicting records, etc.. The website requires very little preparation and could be used before a student even takes their first course.
Concerns:
There is a lot of reading involved with this case study and students may lose interest because of the length. Instructors may want to pick and choose the historical aspects they focus on. However, it also seems that it might be prudent to focus on the website in one-shot; it's questionable whether it really can be easy split into multiple assignments. There is so much history compared to the amount of statistics that it is easy to get lost.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
The website is very nicely done and has a terrific narrative of the historical events surrounding the Salem Witch Trials. The organization of the website is very clean and easy to follow.
Concerns:
The data analysis instructions are only for Excel PC 2003. Anyone using a different version of Excel, or another data analysis program will have to rewrite the instructions for the students.
It would have been nice to have all of the datasets on one page instead of integrated throughout the pages. Although this does force one to read through the text, it does make it difficult to go back and find the data later on. The site map does help with this.
Other Issues and Comments:
There were some data importing issues with programs such as Minitab that are purely PC based.
Creative Commons:
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