plots, including the box plot, the pie chart, the dot plot, the density histogram, the
... Instructions: The following assumes that you have Open Office installed.
Stat 100
Project 1
Purpose: To use a spreadsheet program to calculate several basic statistical quantities from sample data and to display the data in several types of graphs. Reading: Text, sections 2.4 and 2.5 for measures of center and variation and section 2.3 for graphical displays. Submit: Turn in a printout of the worksheet named “Output,” containing the graphs and plots, including the box plot, the pie chart, the dot plot, the density histogram, the frequency histogram, and the stem-leaf display. Also turn in your answers to the questions at the end of this assignment. Please do not submit a copy of these instructions; your instructor already has them. A one or two page submission is what is wanted. Instructions: The following assumes that you have Open Office installed. If Open Office is not loaded on your computer you can download it from www.openoffice.org/ for free. It is perfectly OK to get help if you get stuck, but remember that only the driver learns. We recommend that you setup a Stat100 directory on your personal computer where you can save the project files. Some of the spreadsheet files might be useful to you after Stat 100. Click on “Calc” under spreadsheet in the table where you found these instructions and select “Open with.” This should open your spreadsheet program and load the proper file. Return to your browser and click on “All” under Data and open it. This file contains the data for this project. The file will be loaded in Calc, but you might not see this until you switch to your spreadsheet program. When you do, you should see a dialog box asking how you want translate the data. Make sure that “Separated by” and “Comma” are checked (and not “space”). Also make sure that “Detect Special Numbers” is checked. You should now see five columns of data. Select all of the data (click in the upper lefthand cell, a1, and drag to the lower right cell, e58). All of the data should become highlighted. Now copy the data to the clipboard (ctrl-c in Windows). Switch to the main spreadsheet (alt-tab). You should see a number of worksheet tabs at the bottom of the window. Click on “Input” if it is not already active. Click in cell a1 (the green cell in the upper left-hand corner) and paste the data that you just copied into the worksheet (ctrl-v in Windows). You should see the five columns of numbers appear in this worksheet. If you make an error, simply type ctrl-z to undo the last command. Then try again. Printout: Click on the tab “Output” (lower part of the window). You can see that we have already setup a number of graphs and charts of the data you entered. We will show you how you create charts in the later projects.
Edit the title of the first (upper-left) chart. Double click on the box plot where it says: “Your Title Goes Here”. Then click on the “Insert” menu (top of screen) and “Titles…” Use the dialog box to enter your title: Stat 100 Scores followed by your name. After you close the dialog box, click anywhere else on the worksheet to exit the chart-edit mode. Click on the menu item “file” at the upper left. Then click on “print preview” to see what your output looks like. You should see a single page containing six different charts depicting the grades for students in a Stat 100 course. Make sure that the title of the box plot chart has your name in it. (If you only see one chart, close print preview and then click away from the chart to deselect it and try again.) If the right hand side of the page appears to be cut off, you will need to set the page format to landscape. Close the preview and use the “Format” menu, “Page…”, “Page” to set landscape format. Click on the “Sheet” tab and set “Scaling mode” to “Fit print range….” NO CREDIT WILL BE GRANTED FOR IMPROPERLY-PRINTED FIGURES. Assuming everything appears to be satisfactory, exit the print preview mode and print the single page (you do not have to print in color). Be sure that you only printing the active sheet, otherwise you may waste a lot of paper. Finally, save the file to your hard drive (“File” and then “Save As.”) Questions: Answer the following questions, being concise and clear: 1. What are the mean, median, and standard deviation for the Exam 1 scores? (This information can be found in the yellow-highlighted region of the “BoxPlot” worksheet.) 2. Briefly describe what these quantities measure. 3. As you can see from this exercise, there are many ways of depicting data besides in a tabular format. The one you might use would depend on what you are trying to communicate. Which chart do you think communicates this particular data the most effectively, and why? (There is no wrong answer here, but your reasons should be clear.) 4. Suppose you were handed a piece of paper with 50 scores (between 0 and 100) on it. Further suppose you did not have access to a computer and had to summarize the data by hand. Which chart would you use and why?
