Discovering Important Statistical Concepts using Spreadsheets (DISCUS)
DISCUS consists of eight Excel workbooks and a set of associated photocopiable work cards covering the topics: Descriptive Statistics, Probability, Binomial Distributions, The Poisson Distribution, Continuous Distributions, Sampling, Regression and Hypothesis Testing. The materials are designed to be used off the shelf by students working on their own, and little preparation by teaching staff is required. Each workbook consists of a series of interactive spreadsheets on a particular topic. No prior knowledge of Excel is necessary. The accompanying work cards provide a series of thought provoking challenges which it is hoped will help the student to gain insight and understanding. The overview contains technical information about the spreadsheets; how they work, how to save the workbooks and advice as to how the spreadsheets could be used. The section entitled 'Further information' explains the benefits of using the spreadsheets and that the spreadsheets are adaptable. The overview includes a list of all the different topics covered in each workbook.
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Probability
The workbook contains two simulations designed to help students to understand what is meant by a random process and to give some idea of the likelihood of particular events occurring.
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Regression
These activities cover bivariate data which includes regression and correlation.
[b]Least squares regression[/b] spreadsheet is designed to help students get a feel for drawing a line of best fit through a set of points and to begin to understand the concept of regression. Students are given a set of six...
Sampling
The activities in this workbook are designed to help students to understand what happens when a sample is taken, how to calculate the confidence interval for a mean and what this interval represents.
The first three spreadsheets consider samples taken from a normal distribution, a uniform distribution and an...
The Poisson Distribution
The workbook contains a number of simulations designed to aid students understanding of the Poisson distribution.
[b]Queuing simulation:[/b] is designed to introduce the Poisson distribution through a realistic application, that of simulating a supermarket checkout queue. Students choose the number of people...