real statistics data analysis tool in excel

Real statistics data analysis tool in excel software#
Real statistics data analysis tool in excel code#

In Excel this is just the other way around: the start is easy, but the very big hurdles come if you want to go for more sophisticated analyses.

In R, for comparison, the big hurdle is right the beginning (argh: console input! programming!), but after you have managed this, there are no limits. For more complex tasks I think that although solutions might be available for Excel, the difficulties in solving theses problems with Excel increase exponentially, whereas the difficulties in other (more 'scientific' software) don't increase much at all (or only linearily, if you want). And because of the simplicity there won't be much risk to loose reproducibility. However, there are really simple tasks that are frequently done with Excel and there is no need for programming at all. To me it seems to be much simpler to write an R script than to write (and manage) excel macros and visual basic programs. VBA programming!) what renders the advantage of easy-to-use and the point-and-click philosophy obsolete. It is quite clear: one *can* work quite professionally with Excel - but if Excel is really used professionally (complex analyses on complex and/or big data), then everything it becomes very difficult (e.g. it has a very user-friendly interface and is quite intuitive (I find SAS a bit more unwieldy in this regard) 5. it has a much nicer graphing suite than SPSS and can do a larger variety of analyses 4. its licences are perpetual (with SAS you need to pay an annual subscription) 3. it is a nice blend of syntax programming and point and click for the beginner 2. I personally favour STATA for the following reasons: 1. I would not permit any student of mine to use Excel and I will be giving this same message at an upcoming international talk.

Real statistics data analysis tool in excel software#

For any researcher, the time investment in getting to know a statistical software package, and using it for data entry/management will be more than repaid. it is very limited in the graphical representation of your data. it is very limited in terms of the analysis it can do (you would likely need to import your excel file into a stats program anyway) 3. I would advocate very strongly against using Excel for data management and even more for analysis.

Real statistics data analysis tool in excel code#

If you are going to take the time to code Excel macros, you are better off learning to code in R as it is much more powerful and is actually designed for statistical analysis. You can do more complex and unbalanced designs in Excel using the LINEST function and dummy variable coding, but it is clunky unless you automate it using macros. In addition, it cannot handle unbalanced designs larger than one-way and cannot handle anything larger than a two-way factorial design.

I would not recommend Excel for any ANOVA analyses as it requires a unique data format for the built-in analyses. The graphics and some of the basic statistics such as t-tests, F-tests, correlations and even regressions are quite easily done in Excel with little to no data formatting beyond what would be necessary for any statistical package. In fact, in my opinion, it is superior to any statistical package, including R, for that purpose. Excel is excellent for data management and preprocessing raw data prior to data analysis.