Teaching the Complexity of Dependence With the Triplet Game

Department(s)

Business Administration

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2020

Keywords

Coin flipping, expected value, randomness, simulation

Abstract

Students often struggle with the concept of dependence of events or random variables. We present a simple coin flipping game that yields surprising results due to the dependencies within the game. The game is simple enough for young children to understand and play, yet complex enough to yield results that are counterintuitive to even most graduate students. We discuss how to implement the game in a classroom, suggest two problems from the game for students to solve, and present several solutions to the problems.

Publication Title

Journal of Statistics Education

E-ISSN

10691898

Volume

28

Issue

3

First Page

326

Last Page

333

DOI

10.1080/10691898.2020.1841589

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