Discovering Important Statistical Concepts using Spreadsheets (DISCUS)

DISCUS consists of eight Excel workbooks and a set of associated photocopiable work cards covering the topics: Descriptive Statistics, Probability, Binomial Distributions, The Poisson Distribution, Continuous Distributions, Sampling, Regression and Hypothesis Testing. The materials are designed to be used off the shelf by students working on their own, and little preparation by teaching staff is required. Each workbook consists of a series of interactive spreadsheets on a particular topic. No prior knowledge of Excel is necessary. The accompanying work cards provide a series of thought provoking challenges which it is hoped will help the student to gain insight and understanding. The overview contains technical information about the spreadsheets; how they work, how to save the workbooks and advice as to how the spreadsheets could be used. The section entitled 'Further information' explains the benefits of using the spreadsheets and that the spreadsheets are adaptable. The overview includes a list of all the different topics covered in each workbook.