----- Forwarded message from Graham D Smith -----
[Charset iso-8859-1 unsupported, filtering to ASCII...]
I agree with much of what has been said about the shortcomings of Excel.
After all this strand of discussion was arose from problems with its ranking
procedure. However, I don't think that users should rely on Excel's
statistical functions or analysis tools. Rather, I think that users should
treat a spreadsheet like "automated pencil-and-paper". To perform a repeated
measures t test, for example rather one would get the spreadsheet to
generate difference scores, would calculate their standard error by "long
hand" (again not using the Excel formula). The most complex functions
required are +, -, *, /, ^2, logs etc. In the process one gets a good look
at the data and a feel for it.
----- End of forwarded message from Graham D Smith -----
Actually, I use spreadsheets to create handouts along these lines, and
write spreadsheet-like Minitab macros to crank out detailed answer
sheets for computations students do by hand. Because the original
post was about a built-in Excel function, I thought the discussion was
about teaching statistics using those.
For the approach described above, I wonder what the students will do
after graduation? I fear they will abandon coding everything by hand
and just use the built in Excel functions. In other words, this use
of Excel may be a useful pedagogical tool, but I don't think it
provides students with a practical way of getting data analyzed
outside of school.
_
| | Robert W. Hayden
| | Department of Mathematics
/ | Plymouth State College MSC#29
| | Plymouth, New Hampshire 03264 USA
| * | Rural Route 1, Box 10
/ | Ashland, NH 03217-9702
| ) (603) 968-9914 (home)
L_____/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
fax (603) 535-2943 (work)
--
_
| | Robert W. Hayden
| | Department of Mathematics
/ | Plymouth State College MSC#29
| | Plymouth, New Hampshire 03264 USA
| * | Rural Route 1, Box 10
/ | Ashland, NH 03217-9702
| ) (603) 968-9914 (home)
L_____/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
fax (603) 535-2943 (work)
