Statistical Computation Tools: Excel and GeoGebra

Rationale
In this student activity, students will be learning about tools they can use to analyze statistics. This
incorporates the process expectation of selecting tools and computational strategies to investigate
mathematical ideas. Students will see that often with large amount of data calculations by hand
become very tedious and time consuming so learning how to apply the correct statistical test to
analyze data is an important skill which covers many of the expectations in the Statistical Analysis
strand.

TASK BEFORE YOU GET STARTED: Go With the Flow

Goal: When given a data set, you will be able to figure out which statistical test to use since
you have taken the time to organize it!
Create a flow chart that outlines when you complete
statistical tests for univariate data vs bivariate data. Be
clear on what you are checking for at each stage to know
whether the test is appropriate and to what confidence level
you can draw conclusions. Someone reading this chart
should know which paths to follow and which types of
graphs correspond with each type of data.

Connect ideas we have been

exploring the past while!

Retrieved 24/02/15 from

http://weresoinspired.com/are-you-happy/#.VO88anugvVI

Introduction for Students

Excel
Excel is a useful tool for organizing large sets of data and often data found online comes in Excel
files. It has some statistical capabilities so you can use it to begin analyzing the data.

Set-Up
1. Check that the statistical analysis package is activated. Go to FILE OPTIONS ADD-INS

Look that the Analysis

ToolPak is active
If not, select it and click
GO to activate it

2. Now that you have that, if you input data you can do some quick data anlysis. Go to DATA
DATA ANALYSIS DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS

3. From here you can select the column you wish to analyze and check the SUMMARY
STATISTICS box
This will provide Summary Statistics like seen below:

4. Another option, if looking at bivariate data, is to look at correlation, so in Step 2. You would
select CORRELATION. For the range, go from the first column first entry to the last column
last entry you wish to compare (do not include headers).
You will get a correlation matrix that looks like this,
Pause & Think: Why
are there ones?
This coefficient describes
correlation between the
two variables
5. If you wish to run a linear regression, begin at the DATA ANALYSIS box as in Step 2., and
select REGRESSION. Select you range for x and y by clicking on the cells, and use a
confidence level of 95 %

This will run a regression on your data and provide you with the following,
The Adjusted R
Square value is
important what
does it tell you?

Task 1
Using the functions shown to you above, analyze the following test scores in Excel:
Test
74
Scores
Hours
5
Spent
Studying

34

96

83

56

65

87

43

70

7.5

Begin by considering the class scores alone then treat it as bivariate data, investigating whether
hours studying affected the test outcome. What conclusions can you draw?

GeoGebra
GeoGebra can be downloaded for free from their website,
http://www.geogebra.org/download
It is a useful and easy to use tool for graphing and statistical analysis. Data can be copied
from an Excel spreadsheet into here.
Watch the introduction video provided to learn about how to use it.

Task 2
Choose one of the data sets shown on this website,
http://college.cengage.com/mathematics/brase/understandable_statistics/7e/students/datasets/
svls/frames/frame.html
Complete the appropriate statistical analysis and generate a graph using GeoGebra by

downloading the Excel file and pasting single variable data into the program. What can you
conclude? What information do you need to make a better conclusion?

Task 3
Choose one of the data sets shown on this website,
http://college.cengage.com/mathematics/brase/understandable_statistics/7e/students/d
atasets/slr/frames/frame.html
Complete the appropriate statistical analysis and generate a graph using GeoGebra by
downloading the Excel file and pasting bivariate data into the program. What can you
conclude? What information do you need to make a better conclusion?