Newsletter 13, October 1996
| Newsletter 13, October 1996
Quantitative Methods |
Release 11 of Minitab is now available, obtained in accordance with our licensing agreement, and is running on all Computing Services networks. It contains a number of new features, including:
Click on the What's New in Minitab 11 icon to get complete information, or look in the Minitab Release 11 User’s Guide. The User’s Guide is useful as it gives a number of worked example sessions
I have the latest (1996) edition of a list of text books which refer to Minitab. It covers a range of disciplines. Please contact me if you would like to have a look at it.
In the last LSS newsletter, a description of some STEPS modules was given. These are now available in all Computing Services laboratories for the purpose of illustrating some of the basic statistical methods. I have copies of the documentation
Any member of staff thinking of starting a project which is destined to involve some data analysis is invited to contact me. It is best that this is done at an early stage. One of the bits of advice I’m almost certain to give is: “Generate some artificial data of the kind that you expect to get and try to analyse it”. This is a good way of focusing the mind: it shows you what is needed not only in the practicalities of using a statistical package, but also in the theoretical aspects of using statistical methods. Generating data and analysing it relates, in a concrete way, the data and the research question
If the printer you are using (e.g. the draft printer in the Computing Services laboratories) mangles your table’s nicely line-drawn appearance, a way of getting it printed out in a sensible way is to use “Typewriter Characters” as this draws lines using standard keyboard characters. To change this setting, select the Edit menu of SPSS for Windows, then choose Preferences..., click on the Output... button and finally select the Typewriter Characters option under Borders for Tables.
When you are ready for laser printing, change this option back by following the same procedure but selecting Lines in the final step.
The document Example Survey Analysis using SPSS for Windows is now out in its full LSS house style.
A document on CHAID (Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detector) is available in draft form. CHAID allows relationships amongst categorical (a.k.a. Qualitative) data to be explored. Specifically, it takes one of the categorical variables and explores its relation to predictors of it — for example, in a marketing survey the categorical variable could be “product preference” and the predictors demographic/“lifestyle” categories.
The methods of data analysis required depend on the system and the nature of the data generated by it, and not on the limitations in understanding of the persons involved.
Dr Paul Marchant