Hello Friends, I am soon to take Aleks Statistics and was wondering if their is any software for statistics that is available to purchase? The software should be similar to the Algebrator software? Thank you, ASQT
The Microsoft Excel program probably has all the software you will need. Use "Insert - Function" or "Tools - Data Analysis."
I agree, Excel has most everything you would need. The problem is understanding how to work Excel properly. It's pretty easy to get it messed up. For example, getting Excel to do standard deviation is a multi-step process. I know this because I often teach my Jr. high students how to use Excel. Here's a link to a tutorial for computing standard deviation using Excel. You can see that it works great...you just have to be careful to do it properly or you will get the wrong answer and possibly not ever realize it. http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/siegle/research/Normal/stdexcel.htm
Judging from the other posts, it seems you are looking for spreadsheets? I am a HUGE fan of spreadsheet software. Excel is about the only thing from Microsoft that I don't loathe. However, since I am a cheapo I use OpenOffice.org. It is so similar to Excel that you probably won't notice the difference- even the user interface is close to some of the older versions of Excel, and it's FREE!! (Note, OpenOffice writer is nowhere near as good as Word, likewise Presentations is nowhere near as good as Powerpoint, but I haven't had any issues at all with the spreadsheets- they are quite similar and, unlike WordPerfect, use the same formulas and its very easy to convert into Excel format if need be.) To download, try http://openoffice.org or http://download.com.
I took a face to face class in statistics a few years ago for my undergrad degree, and we only used excel. The textbook was pretty good, and it looks like you can get it really cheap if you get the edition I used (2nd Ed): http://www.amazon.com/Elementary-Statistics-Using-Excel-Second/dp/0201775697 It's based on Excel 2002, but if you're using 2003 it hasn't changed much at all. I have yet to use 2007, so I couldn't compare in that regard. Good luck!
Using MS Excel for statistics is both rudimentary and difficult--a terrible match. But your alternatives aren't any better, especially for beginning statistics. There are sophisticated programs out there, including the ever-popular SPSS. But they're often difficult to learn, and are really tools, not learning programs. Unless you anticipate working with large data sets and/or running advanced statistical procedures, I'd recommend doing your problems by hand, and learn MS Excel's functions as you can. For simple data sets, there are some free online tools you can use to do descriptive stats, some paired comparisons, even ANOVA. Using a search engine should lead you to them.
You'd certainly notice if you were trying to use the statistical data analysis functions as OpenOffice doesn't have them. For a free clone of the Excel statistics pack download Gnumeric.
"You'd certainly notice if you were trying to use the statistical data analysis functions as OpenOffice doesn't have them. " Oh...
Yes, but Open Office does the basics just fine and could still be useful in computing simple statistics. Maybe it's not at the level of other applications, but it's still useful.
