A Social Annotation Tool for Introductory Statistics

ABSTRACT The ability to read and interpret statistical results is an important goal of an introductory statistics course. The ability to critically understand empirical papers is also crucial for economics majors as economics has become increasingly empirical in recent decades. Perusall is a social annotation tool that allows students to annotate readings. While instructors in some fields have found Perusall to be a valuable tool, the literature on its use in the teaching of statistics remains limited. In my Statistics for Business and Economics I course, I use Perusall to assign both the reading of relevant chapters of a free statistics textbook and the reading of academic papers. This article describes the main features of Perusall and how I use it in my course. I also discuss the specific papers I have assigned and the pedagogical reasons for my choices. The supplemental material contains the prompts I use for the readings.