Computer Tools

We can compute the statistical quantities we have seen before using a variety of computer tools.

Spreadsheets

Excel and Google Sheets usually have identical functions and syntax

• AVERAGE
• PERCENTILE
• PERCENTRANK

Python

• numpy.mean
• numpy.percentile
• numpy.histogram
• matplotlib.hist

Similar functions are also available in the Pandas python library.

R

• mean
• quantile
• percent_rank
• hist
• Normal Distribution

Spreadsheet Histograms

Plotting a histogram in Google Sheets

Sending Data to the Function

Most of the functions above require many numbers to calculate the answer so we need to send several numbers to the spreadsheet.

In many computer programs (Excel, Google Sheets, Python, R) you have a function name followed by parentheses and the numbers sent to the function are in the parentheses.

• =AVERAGE(range of numbers)

In excel, we specify a range of numbers by the cells where the data starts and ends. For example A1:A10 is all the numbers stored between cells A1 and A10. To select an entire column, we use the idiom A:A.

To calculate the average of these numbers, we type

=AVERAGE(A1:A10)

Selecting data from another sheet in the spreadsheet

Often our data is in another sheet in the spreadsheet. Here is a function to calculate the average of that data.

=AVERAGE(datasheet!A1:A10)

• = means do a function
• AVERAGE is the computer command
• datasheet is the name of the sheet with the data
• A1:A10 is the chunk of data,