11.3 A second attempt at Cohen's d effect size with hula hooping

Failure is always an option. And failure was the result today. Spring 2024 the basic concept was to have them try to hoop, essentially not do well, show them how to hoop, and then use a paired t-test for a difference in the number of rotations from before to after. There were two complications with this plan. The first was a very small sample size. The second was that some students already knew how to hoop. The result was a statistically insignificant difference and thus an invalidation of calculating Cohen's effect size d. 

Desmos

Failure at this scale does not happen for instructors of algebra. 

Spreadsheet

Only three men showed up for class this morning. Opting to keep sample sizes equal, only three women were asked to hoop. The small sample size doomed this effort from the get go.

For future reference, should a third attempt be foolishly made to find a way to use hula hoops to demonstrate Cohen's effect size d, thirty seconds is actually too long, unnecessarily long. Ten to fifteen seconds would be sufficient to demonstrate proficiency in hooping. Failure for non-hoopers happens in the first few seconds. 

The first hooper opted to do neck hooping, that was rejected as not being proper hooping. 

Timing with a stopwatch worked well enough. 

Note that five of the six students were proficient in hooping, another unexpected result.