As one of the three lead authors, I am writing to introduce you to our textbook, Statistics: Concepts and Methods. Students at both college and advanced high school levels find this book an effective learning tool.

For 5 years I co-led with Ken Travers instructional summer workshops on high school statistics funded by the National Science Foundation and put on by the Illinois Institute for Statistics Education. This book is a direct outgrowth of those workshops. We (the lead authors) have honed the book's pedagogical approach through years of classroom experience. Using a beta version of the book, we have taught similar introductory courses at the University of Illinois, where Ditlev Monrad and I have taught in the Department of Statistics, and at West Virginia University, where James Harner is head of the Department of Statistics. The book has also had fresh input from Jerrine Roderique and Richard Stalmack, high school statistics teachers (one AP and one non-AP).

At the heart of this textbook is its simulation-based experiential immersion in the world of randomness and statistical inference. This is coupled with thorough coverage of traditional normal population and large sample inference. In cooperation with Ditlev Monrad and me, James Harner, expert in Web-based statistics instructional materials, has developed platform-independent, fast instructional software.

Through this hands-on, active learning exposure to statistical concepts and methods, demanding core ideas come alive. These include variability, the central limit theorem, and hypothesis testing. Students develop statistical intuition as they conduct large-scale simulations. Such simulation is heavily stressed in the College Board preparatory standards and in college classes that effectively train students to handle future statistical problems. This text prepares students for a future of statistical literacy.

Sincerely,

William Stout
Professor of Statistics