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Explaining the Importance of Variability to Engineering Students

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  • Pere Grima
  • Lourdes Rodero
  • Xavier Tort-Martorell

Abstract

One of the main challenges of teaching statistics to engineering students is to convey the importance of being conscious of the presence of variability and of taking it into account when making technical and managerial decisions. Often, technical subjects are explained in an ideal and deterministic environment. This article shows the possibilities of simple electrical circuits—the Wheatstone Bridge among them—to explain to students how to characterize variability, how it is transmitted, and how it affects decisions. Additionally, they can be used to introduce the importance of robustness by showing that taking into account the variability of components allows the design of cheaper products with greater benefits than if one were to simply apply formulas that consider variables as exact values. The results are quite unexpected, and they arouse the interest and motivation of students. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

Suggested Citation

  • Pere Grima & Lourdes Rodero & Xavier Tort-Martorell, 2016. "Explaining the Importance of Variability to Engineering Students," The American Statistician, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 70(2), pages 138-142, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:amstat:v:70:y:2016:i:2:p:138-142
    DOI: 10.1080/00031305.2015.1064478
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    1. Lee, Herbert K.H., 2007. "Chocolate Chip Cookies as a Teaching Aid," The American Statistician, American Statistical Association, vol. 61, pages 351-355, November.
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