Professor of Statistics
Ph.D., Michigan State University, 1959

Summary of research interests

Dr. Harkness's interests for the past few years have been in statistical education. Working with a group of instructors (called TAPS) in the department and in collaboration with the Schreyer Institute for Innovation in Learning, the department's primary introductory course, Stat 200, Elementary Statistics, has recently been restructured. He has also been active in consulting through service on doctoral committees.

His research and teaching interests are in the theory and application of categorical data analysis models. He has had extensive collaborations with faculty in science education, instructional systems, and etymology.

Dr. Harkness was head of the Department of Statistics from 1969 through 1987. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the American Statistical Association and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute.

Representative publications

M. Frazier, J. Finley, and E. Rajotte. 2000. A sequential sampling scheme for detecting the presence of tracheal mite (Acarapis woodi) infestations in honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) colonies. J. Econ. Entomology 93: 551-558.

W. L. Harkness, M. Agocs, J. Velcanbach, and S. Arnold. 1998. Distribution of the number of errors made using Tukey's pairwise comparison procedure under the null hypothesis. Proceedings of the section on Statistical Education, American Statistical Association, pp. 282-287.

W. L. Harkness, B. Grabowski. 1996. Enhancing statistics education with expert systems: More than an advisory system. Journal of Statistical Education.

W. L. Harkness, J. R. Vicary, and L.R. Klingaman. 1995. Risk factors associated with date rape and sexual assault of adolescent girls. Journal of Adolescence 18: 289-306.

W. L. Harkness and S. Anderson. 1992. Categorical data analysis of the effect of butylated hydroxytoluene as a cryoprotectant on bull fertility. Andrology 14: 382-395.

Last updated: April 11, 2003