Abstract
The process of reviewing software begins with several basic questions. What are the objectives or purpose of the software? To what extent does the software achieve its objectives? Are the demands placed upon the user in keeping with the benefits of the software? And finally, so what? That is, even if a program accomplishes its objectives without making inordinate demands on the user, does it really matter? Is the software little more than a successful exercise in programming or is it useful and productive? Underlying Resampling Stats is the premise that most people do not understand probability theory and its offspring, inferential statistics. Based on his experience with graduate students who selected "wildly wrong" statistical tests to analyze their data in a research methods course he taught, Julian Simon set out to develop a tool to lessen the likelihood of error and contribute to a better understanding of probability. The tool Simon came up with is Resampling Stats, a program and language that is the computer-based equivalent of coin flips, marble pulls, or die tosses.