EXERCISE IN DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS
R. E. Wyllys

Assignment Title: Exercise in Descriptive Statistics

Participation: Individual.

Format: Produce an Excel worksheet

Submission Method: Email to the course emailbox with the assignment attached as a Microsoft Excel worksheet.

Maximum points: 1.

Introduction: The tools of descriptive and inferential statistics are important in research in library and information science. This exercise is intended to help introduce you to these tools and demonstrate the ease with which computer programs, such as Microsoft Excel, can carry out many of the necessary calculations and other operations. The exercise has two parts. In Part 1, you are to derive several basic statistical measures for a set of data. In Part 2, you are to prepare a chart from another set of data.

Goals: The goals of this assignment are:

• To introduce you to some basic concepts of descriptive statistics

• To acquaint you with some of the statistical tools within Excel

Tasks: For this assignment you will:

1. Following the instructions in the Hints below, copy to your computer the spreadsheet that contains the data and instructions for the Excel exercise.
   Windows Hint: If you are using Windows, place the cursor on the hyperlinked "spreadsheet" above, and right-click the mouse. A popup will appear offering several options, including "Save Link As" in Netscape and "Save Target As" in Internet Explorer. Select this option, and save the spreadsheet file, 38613StatExer.xls, to the computer you are using. Then launch Microsoft Excel, and open this file. (Note: Some installations of Netscape insist on saving the file as a read-only file; if you encounter this problem, just use Internet Explorer to save the file to your computer.)
   Macintosh Hint: If you are using a Macintosh, place the cursor on the hyperlinked "spreadsheet" above, and depress the Control key while you click and hold the mouse button. A popup will appear offering several options, including "Download Link to Disk." Select this option, and save the spreadsheet file, 38613StatExer.xls, to the computer you are using. Then launch Microsoft Excel, and open this file.
   General Hint: There are other ways of downloading the spreadsheet. For example, many installations of Internet Explorer and Netscape will allow you simply to double-click on "spreadsheet" above, with the result that Excel will be launched and the spreadsheet will be opened in it. Unfortunately, not all installations work this simply and directly. We believe that the instructions given above will work with almost all installations of Internet Explorer and Netscape.

2. Apply the instructions in the spreadsheet to the data.

3. Submit your assignment to the course emailbox. Please take care to save your spreadsheet as an Excel file and to ensure that it has the extension ".xls".