.Excel 2010 for Educational and Psychological Statistics

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Excel 2010 cho các thống kê giáo dục và tâm lý: Một hướng dẫn để giải quyết Vấn đề thực tế sẽ giúp bất cứ ai muốn tìm hiểu những điều cơ bản của việc áp dụng của Excel mạnh mẽ các công cụ thống kê tình hình công việc của họ hoặc các lớp học của họ. Nếu sự hiểu biết số liệu thống kê là không phù hợp với mạnh của bạn, bạn không phải là toán học nghiêng, hoặc bạn là cảnh giác với máy tính, sau đó đây là cuốn sách cho bạn....

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Excel 2010 for Educational and Psychological Statistics
Thomas Quirk Excel 2010 for Educational and Psychological Statistics A Guide to Solving Practical Problems
Thomas Quirk School of Business and Technology Webster University St. Louis, MO 63119, USA quirkto@webster.edu ISBN 978-1-4614-2070-5 e-ISBN 978-1-4614-2071-2 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-2071-2 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2011941800 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identiﬁed as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
This book is dedicated to the more than 3,000 students I have taught at Webster University’s campuses in St. Louis, London, and Vienna; the students at Principia College in Elsah, Illinois; and the students at the Cooperative State University of Baden-Wuerttemburg in Heidenheim, Germany. These students taught me a great deal about the art of teaching. I salute them all, and I thank them for helping me to become a better teacher.
Preface Excel 2010 for Educational and Psychological Statistics: A Guide to Solving Practical Problems helps anyone who wants to learn the basics of applying Excel’s powerful statistical tools to their work situation or to their classes. If understanding statistics is not your strongest suit, you are not mathematically inclined, or you are wary of computers, then this is the book for you. You will learn how to perform key statistical tests in Excel without being overwhelmed by statistical theory. This book clearly and logically shows how to run statistical tests to solve practical problems in education and psychology. Excel is a widely available computer program for students, instructors, and managers in education and in business. It is also an effective teaching and learning tool for quantitative analyses in statistics courses. Its powerful computational ability and graphical functions make learning statistics much easier than in years past. However, this is the ﬁrst book to showcase Excel’s usefulness in teaching educational and psychological statistics. And it focuses exclusively on this topic in order to render the subject matter applicable and practical – and, easy to comprehend and apply. Unique features of this book: Includes 163 color screen shots so you can be sure you are performing Excel l steps correctly. You will be told each step of the way, not only how to use Excel, but also why l you are doing each step. Includes speciﬁc objectives embedded in the text for each concept, so you can l know the purpose of the Excel steps. You will learn both how to write statistical formulas using Excel and how to use l Excel’s drop-down menus that will create the formulas for you. Statistical theory and formulas are explained in clear language without bogging l you down in mathematical ﬁne points. Practical examples of problems are taken from both education and psychology. l vii
viii Preface Each chapter presents key steps to solve practical problems using Excel. l In addition, three practice problems at the end of each chapter enable you to test your new knowledge. Answers to these problems appear in Appendix A. A “Practice Test” is given in Appendix B to test your knowledge at the end of the l book. Answers to this test appear in Appendix C. This book does not come with a CD of Excel ﬁles which you can upload to your l computer. Instead, you will be shown how to create each Excel ﬁle yourself. In a work or classroom situation, your colleagues and professors will not give you an Excel ﬁle. You will be expected to create your own. This book will give you ample practice in developing this important skill. This book is a tool that can be used either by itself or along with any good l statistics book. This book is appropriate for use in any course – graduate of undergraduate – in Educational and Psychological Statistics, as well as for administrators/managers who want to improve their Excel skills. It will also beneﬁt students who are taking courses in Sociology, Anthropology, or Computer Science who want to learn how to use Excel to solve statistics problems. The ideas in this book have been thoroughly tested by its author, Professor Tom Quirk, in both Marketing Statistics and Marketing Research courses. At the beginning of his academic career, Prof. Quirk spent 6 years in educa- tional research at The American Institutes for Research and Educational Testing Service. He then taught Social Psychology, Educational Psychology, and General Psychology at Principia College and is currently a Professor of Marketing in the George Herbert Walker School of Business & Technology at Webster University based in St. Louis, Missouri (USA) where he teaches Marketing Statistics, Marketing Research, and Pricing Strategies. He has published articles in the Journal of Educational Psychology, Journal of Educational Research, Review of Educational Research, Journal of Educational Measurement, Educational Technology, The Elementary School Journal, Journal of Secondary Education, Educational Horizons, and Phi Delta Kappan. In addition, he has written 60+ textbook supplements in Marketing and Management, published 20+ articles in professional journals, and presented 20+ papers at professional meetings, includ- ing annual meetings of The American Educational Research Association, The American Psychological Association, and the National Council on Measurement in Education. He holds a BS in Mathematics from John Carroll University, both an MA in Education and a PhD in Educational Psychology from Stanford University, and an MBA from The University of Missouri-St. Louis. St. Louis, MO, USA Thomas Quirk
Acknowledgments Excel 2010 for Educational and Psychological Statistics: A Guide to Solving Practical Problems is the result of inspiration from three important people: my two daughters and my wife. Jennifer Quirk McLaughlin invited me to visit her MBA classes several times at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. These visits to a ﬁrst-rate MBA program convinced me there was a need for a book to teach students how to solve practical business problems using Excel. Meghan Quirk-Horton’s dogged dedication to learning the many statistical techniques needed to complete her PhD dissertation illustrated the need for a statistics book that would make this daunting task more user-friendly. And Lynne Buckley-Quirk was the number one cheerleader for this project from the beginning, always encouraging me and helping me remain dedicated to completing it. Sue Gold, a reference librarian at Webster University in St. Louis, was a valuable colleague in helping me to do key research, and was a steady supporter of this idea. Brad Wolaver of Webster University improved my Ofﬁce 2010 skills in many ways. Marc Strauss, my editor at Springer, caught the spirit of this idea in our ﬁrst phone conversation and shepherded this book through the idea stages until it reached its ﬁnal form. His encouragement and support were vital to this book seeing the light of day. I thank him for being such an outstanding product champion throughout this process. ix
Contents 1 Sample Size, Mean, Standard Deviation, and Standard Error of the Mean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.1 Mean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Standard Deviation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.3 Standard Error of the Mean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.4 Sample Size, Mean, Standard Deviation, and Standard Error of the Mean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.4.1 Using the Fill/Series/Columns Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.4.2 Changing the Width of a Column . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1.4.3 Centering Information in a Range of Cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1.4.4 Naming a Range of Cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1.4.5 Finding the Sample Size Using the ¼COUNT Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 1.4.6 Finding the Mean Score Using the ¼AVERAGE Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 1.4.7 Finding the Standard Deviation Using the ¼STDEV Function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1.4.8 Finding the Standard Error of the Mean. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1.5 Saving a Spreadsheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 1.6 Printing a Spreadsheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 1.7 Formatting Numbers in Currency Format (Two Decimal Places) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 1.8 Formatting Numbers in Number Format (Three Decimal Places) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 1.9 End-of-Chapter Practice Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Reference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 xi
xii Contents Random Number Generator. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2 2.1 Creating Frame Numbers for Generating Random Numbers . . . . . . 21 2.2 Creating Random Numbers in an Excel Worksheet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 2.3 Sorting Frame Numbers into a Random Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 2.4 Printing an Excel File So That All of the Information Fits onto One Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 2.5 End-of-Chapter Practice Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Reference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 3 Conﬁdence Interval About the Mean Using the TINV Function and Hypothesis Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 3.1 Conﬁdence Interval About the Mean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 3.1.1 How to Estimate the Population Mean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 3.1.2 Estimating the Lower Limit and the Upper Limit of the 95% Conﬁdence Interval About the Mean . . . . . . . . . . 36 3.1.3 Estimating the Conﬁdence Interval for the Chevy Impala in Miles per Gallon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 3.1.4 Where Did the Number “1.96” Come From? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 3.1.5 Finding the Value for t in the Conﬁdence Interval Formula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 3.1.6 Using Excel’s TINV Function to Find the Conﬁdence Interval About the Mean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 3.1.7 Using Excel to Find the 95% Conﬁdence Interval for a Car’s Miles per Gallon Claim. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 3.2 Hypothesis Testing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 3.2.1 Hypotheses Always Refer to the Population of People or Events That You Are Studying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 3.2.2 The Null Hypothesis and the Research (Alternative) Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 3.2.3 The Seven Steps for Hypothesis Testing Using the Conﬁdence Interval About the Mean . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 3.3 Alternative Ways to Summarize the Result of a Hypothesis Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 3.3.1 Different Ways to Accept the Null Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 3.3.2 Different Ways to Reject the Null Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 3.4 End-of-Chapter Practice Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 One-Group t-Test for the Mean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 4 4.1 The Seven Steps for Hypothesis Testing Using the One-Group t-Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 4.1.1 Step 1: State the Null Hypothesis and the Research Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 4.1.2 Step 2: Select the Appropriate Statistical Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Contents xiii 4.1.3 Step 3: Decide on a Decision Rule for the One-Group t-Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 4.1.4 Step 4: Calculate the Formula for the One-Group t-Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 4.1.5 Step 5: Find the Critical Value of t in the t-Table in Appendix E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 4.1.6 Step 6: State the Result of Your Statistical Test . . . . . . . . . . 69 4.1.7 Step 7: State the Conclusion of Your Statistical Test in Plain English! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 4.2 One-Group t-Test for the Mean. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 4.3 Can You Use Either the 95% Conﬁdence Interval About the Mean or the One-Group t-Test When Testing Hypotheses? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 4.4 End-of-Chapter Practice Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Two-Group t-Test of the Difference of the Means 5 for Independent Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 5.1 The Nine Steps for Hypothesis Testing Using the Two-Group t-Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 5.1.1 Step 1: Name One Group, Group 1, and the Other Group, Group 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 5.1.2 Step 2: Create a Table That Summarizes the Sample Size, Mean Score, and Standard Deviation of Each Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 5.1.3 Step 3: State the Null Hypothesis and the Research Hypothesis for the Two-Group t-Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 5.1.4 Step 4: Select the Appropriate Statistical Test . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 5.1.5 Step 5: Decide on a Decision Rule for the Two-Group t-Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 5.1.6 Step 6: Calculate the Formula for the Two-Group t-Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 5.1.7 Step 7: Find the Critical Value of t in the t-Table in Appendix E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 5.1.8 Step 8: State the Result of Your Statistical Test . . . . . . . . . . 86 5.1.9 Step 9: State the Conclusion of Your Statistical Test in Plain English! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 5.2 Formula #1: Both Groups Have More Than 30 People in Them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 5.2.1 An Example of Formula #1 for the Two-Group t-Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 5.3 Formula #2: One or Both Groups Have Less Than 30 People in Them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 5.4 End-of-Chapter Practice Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
xiv Contents Correlation and Simple Linear Regression. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 6 6.1 What Is a “Correlation”?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 6.1.1 Understanding the Formula for Computing a Correlation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 6.1.2 Understanding the Nine Steps for Computing a Correlation, r . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 6.2 Using Excel to Compute a Correlation Between Two Variables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 6.3 Creating a Chart and Drawing the Regression Line onto the Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 6.3.1 Using Excel to Create a Chart and the Regression Line Through the Data Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 6.4 Printing a Spreadsheet so that the Table and Chart Fit onto One Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 6.5 Finding the Regression Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 6.5.1 Installing the Data Analysis ToolPak into Excel . . . . . . . . . . 130 6.5.2 Using Excel to Find the SUMMARY OUTPUT of Regression. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 6.5.3 Finding the Equation for the Regression Line. . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 6.5.4 Using the Regression Line to Predict the Y-Value for a Given X-Value. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 6.6 Adding the Regression Equation to the Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 6.7 How to Recognize Negative Correlations in the SUMMARY OUTPUT Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 6.8 Printing Only Part of a Spreadsheet Instead of the Entire Spreadsheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 6.8.1 Printing Only the Table and the Chart on a Separate Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 6.8.2 Printing Only the Chart on a Separate Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 6.8.3 Printing Only the SUMMARY OUTPUT of the Regression Analysis on a Separate Page . . . . . . . . . . . 141 6.9 End-of-Chapter Practice Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Multiple Correlation and Multiple Regression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 7 7.1 Multiple Regression Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 7.2 Finding the Multiple Correlation and the Multiple Regression Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 7.3 Using the Regression Equation to Predict FROSH GPA. . . . . . . . . . 155 7.4 Using Excel to Create a Correlation Matrix in Multiple Regression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 7.5 End-of-Chapter Practice Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Contents xv One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 8 8.1 Using Excel to Perform a One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 8.2 How to Interpret the ANOVA Table Correctly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 8.3 Using the Decision Rule for the ANOVA F-Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 8.4 Testing the Difference Between Two Groups Using the ANOVA t-Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 8.4.1 Comparing LECTURES vs. INDEPENDENT in Their Exam Scores Using the ANOVA t-Test. . . . . . . . . . 171 8.5 End-of-Chapter Practice Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Appendix A: Answers to End-of-Chapter Practice Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Appendix B: Practice Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 Appendix C: Answers to Practice Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Appendix D: Statistical Formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 Appendix E: t-Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Chapter 1 Sample Size, Mean, Standard Deviation, and Standard Error of the Mean This chapter deals with how you can use Excel to ﬁnd the average (i.e., “mean”) of a set of scores, the standard deviation of these scores (STDEV), and the standard error of the mean (s.e.) of these scores. All three of these statistics are used frequently and form the basis for additional statistical tests. 1.1 Mean The mean is the “arithmetic average” of a set of scores. When my daughter was in the ﬁfth grade, she came home from school with a sad face and said that she did not get “averages.” The book she was using described how to ﬁnd the mean of a set of scores, and so I said to her: “Jennifer, you add up all the scores and divide by the number of numbers that you have.” She gave me “that look,” and said: “Dad, this is serious!” She thought I was teasing her. So, I said: “See these numbers in your book; add them up. What is the answer?” (She did that). “Now, how many numbers do you have?” (She answered that question). “Then, take the number you got when you added up the numbers, and divide that number by the number of numbers that you have.” She did that and found the correct answer. You will use that same reasoning now, but it will be much easier for you because Excel will do all of the steps for you. We will call this average of the scores the “mean” which we will symbolize as X, and we will pronounce it as “Xbar.” The formula for ﬁnding the mean with your calculator looks like this: P X X¼ (1.1) n T. Quirk, Excel 2010 for Educational and Psychological Statistics: 1 A Guide to Solving Practical Problems, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-2071-2_1, # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
2 1 Sample Size, Mean, Standard Deviation, and Standard Error of the Mean The symbol S is the Greek letter sigma, which stands for “sum.” It tells you to add up all the scores that are indicated by the letter X and then to divide your answer by n (the number of numbers that you have). Let us give a simple example. Suppose that you had these six test scores on a seven-item true-false quiz: 6 4 5 3 2 5 To ﬁnd the mean of these scores, you add them up and then divide by the number of scores. So, the mean is: 25/6 ¼ 4.17. 1.2 Standard Deviation The standard deviation tells you “how close the scores are to the mean.” If the standard deviation is a small number, this tells you that the scores are “bunched together” close to the mean. If the standard deviation is a large number, this tells you that the scores are “spread out” a greater distance from the mean. The formula for the standard deviation (which we will call STDEV and use the letter, S, to symbolize) is: sﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃﬃ P 2 ðX À X Þ STDEV ¼ S ¼ (1.2) nÀ1 The formula looks complicated, but what it asks you to do is this: Subtract the mean from each score (X À X). 1. 2. Then, square the resulting number to make it a positive number. 3. Then, add up these squared numbers to get a total score. Then, take this total score and divide it by n À 1 (where n stands for the number 4. of numbers that you have). 5. The ﬁnal step is to take the square root of the number you found in step 4. You will not be asked to compute the standard deviation using your calculator in this book, but you could see examples of how it is computed in any basic statistics book. Instead, we will use Excel to ﬁnd the standard deviation of a set of scores. When we use Excel on the six numbers we gave in the description of the mean above, you will ﬁnd that the STDEV of these numbers, S, is 1.47.
1.3 Standard Error of the Mean 3 1.3 Standard Error of the Mean The formula for the standard error of the mean, s.e., (which we will use SX to symbolize) is S s.e: ¼SX ¼ pﬃﬃﬃ (1.3) n To ﬁnd s.e., all you need to do is to take the standard deviation, STDEV, and divide it by the square root of n, where n stands for the “number of numbers” that you have in your data set. In the example under the standard deviation description above, the s.e. ¼ 0.60. (You can check this on your calculator.) If you want to learn more about the standard deviation and the standard error of the mean, see Weiers (2011). Now, let us learn how to use Excel to ﬁnd the sample size, the mean, the standard deviation, and the standard error or the mean using a geometry test given to a class of eight ninth graders at the end of the ﬁrst term of the school year (50 points possible). The hypothetical data appear in Fig. 1.1. Fig. 1.1 Worksheet data for a geometry test (practical example)
4 1 Sample Size, Mean, Standard Deviation, and Standard Error of the Mean 1.4 Sample Size, Mean, Standard Deviation, and Standard Error of the Mean Objective: To ﬁnd the sample size (n), mean, standard deviation (STDEV), and standard error of the mean (s.e.) for these data Start your computer and click on the Excel 2010 icon to open a blank Excel spreadsheet. Enter the data in this way: A3: Student B3: Geometry Test Score A4: 1 1.4.1 Using the Fill/Series/Columns Commands Objective: To add the student numbers 2–8 in a column underneath student #1 Put pointer in A4. Home (top left of screen) Fill (top right of screen: click on the down arrow; see Fig. 1.2) Fig. 1.2 Home/Fill/Series commands Series Columns Step value: 1 Stop value: 8 (see Fig. 1.3)