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Statistics

Introduction to Statistics and Data Analysis with Microsoft Excel

Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc.

Advanced content levelAdvanced

Learn how to use and apply Excel’s statistical functions and tools

Course Outcomes:

  • Generate and interpret statistics using functions and the Analysis ToolPak
  • Use statistical charts including box and whisker charts
  • Use correlation to determine linear relationships
  • Use sampling to estimate population statistics
  • Use confidence intervals to express degrees of certainty
  • Put theories on trial with hypothesis tests

Have you ever wished you knew more about statistics and how to interpret and use them in your everyday or professional life? Do you want to learn how Excel’s statistical tools and functions can help you, and how to use them? If so, this hands-on practical course is for you!

Join expert Dawn Griffiths to learn how to apply key statistical concepts such as variance, probability distributions, confidence intervals, and hypothesis tests using Microsoft Excel. You’ll learn how to generate statistics using Excel's built-in statistical functions and the Analysis ToolPak, and the insights they provide into your data. You’ll discover the pitfalls of biased samples and how to avoid them. You’ll use probability and probability distributions to make predictions, create confidence intervals, and put your theories to the test with hypothesis testing. Along the way, you’ll use tables, Pivot Tables, and charts, to summarize, visualize and help you interpret your results.

What you’ll learn and how you can apply it

  • To use the Analysis ToolPak and interpret its output
  • To generate and interpret descriptive statistics and the insights they provide
  • To create and interpret histograms and box and whisker charts
  • To use standardized scores to compare data sets
  • To estimate population statistics using sampling
  • To solve problems using probability distributions
  • To use confidence intervals to express level of certainty
  • To understand and use hypothesis testing

This live event is for you because...

  • You want to be able to use and interpret statistics but lack confidence
  • You’re a project manager and want to gain insights from your data
  • You’re a data analyst and want to know more about Excel’s statistical tools
  • You’re a digital marketer and want to analyze the effectiveness of a campaign approach
  • You work with financial data and want to generate statistics
  • You’re a software developer who wants to learn statistics to better measure and predict performance
  • You’re an Excel power user and want to know how to use more of Excel’s features
  • You want to know what the Analysis ToolPak provides, and how to interpret its output
  • You want a hands-on, practical refresher of statistics

Prerequisites

  • Basic knowledge of Excel functions, tables, charts, and pivot tables

Recommended Preparation:

  • A working copy of Microsoft Excel, preferably Excel 2016+
  • Enable the Excel Analysis ToolPak on your computer

Recommended Follow-Up:

Related Live Courses

Before this course:

After this course:

Schedule

The time frames are only estimates and may vary according to how the class is progressing.

Data Types and Frequencies (30 minutes)

  • Presentation and demos: Why are statistics so important?; introducing data types (qualitative and quantitative); calculating frequencies with pivot tables and functions; visualizing data with pivot charts and histograms
  • Hands-on exercise: Find the frequency
  • Q&A

Describing data (50 minutes)

  • Demos: Describing the average using mean, median, and mode; describing the spread of data using the range and interquartile range; visualizing statistics using a box and whisker chart; generating statistics with the Analysis ToolPak
  • Hands-on exercise: Determine the averages and ranges for a set of data
  • Q&A
  • Break

Measuring variability (25 minutes)

  • Demos: Using variance and standard deviation to describe variability; using z-scores to standardize sets of data
  • Hands-on exercise: Determine the statistics and find out who got the highest relative score
  • Q&A

Correlation (25 minutes)

  • Demos: Using correlation to see if two things are related; generating a correlation matrix with the Analysis ToolPak
  • Hands-on exercise: Find the correlation
  • Q&A
  • Break

Samples and populations (15 minutes)

  • Presentation and demos: Populations versus samples; avoiding bias; how to choose representative samples; designing surveys and experiments
  • Q&A

Probability (20 minutes)

  • Presentation and demos: Why is probability so important for statistics?; visualizing probabilities with Venn diagrams; visualizing probabilities with a probability tree; how to use a probability tree to calculate more complex probabilities
  • Hands-on exercise: Calculate the probability
  • Q&A

Probability Distributions (45 minutes)

  • Presentation and demo: What’s a probability distribution?; when and how to use discrete probability distributions (e.g., the binomial distribution); when and how to use the normal distribution
  • Hands-on exercises: Solve a problem using a discrete probability distribution; solve a problem using the normal distribution
  • Q&A
  • Break

Confidence intervals (15 minutes)

  • Presentation and demo: Confidence intervals help you express uncertainty; how to calculate confidence intervals
  • Hands-on exercise: Find the confidence interval
  • Q&A

Hypothesis testing (15 minutes)

  • Presentation and demo: An overview of hypothesis testing; an example hypothesis test using ANOVA
  • Hands-on exercise: What’s the outcome of the hypothesis test?
  • Q&A

Your Instructor

  • Dawn Griffiths

    Dawn Griffiths is an author and trainer with over 20 years of experience using Excel. Her most recent book is Excel Cookbook, and she's also written several books in the Head First series, including Head First Statistics, Head First Android Development, and Head First Kotlin. Dawn also developed the animated video course The Agile Sketchpad with her husband, David, to teach key concepts and techniques in a way that keeps your brain active and engaged.

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