minitab 14 review - statistics teaching

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30 Teaching Statistics. Volume 27, Number 1, Spring 2005

SOFTWARE REVIEW

BlackwellPublishing,Ltd.Oxford,UKTESTTeachingStatistics0141-982XTeachingStatisticsTrust 2004271SOFTWAREREVIEWTitleTitle

Minitab 14

Minitab 14 is reviewed by Chris du Feu.

MINITAB 14 is now available. Whenever a new

version of a package is issued, two questions

arise: Does it work well? Is it compatible with

earlier versions? The answer to both of these is an

unqualified Yes. Users of earlier Windows-based

versions will have no difficulty in using version 14.

Everything feels familiar; files produced underversion 13 load naturally and worksheets from earlier

versions can be opened as the appropriate file type.

I have not yet managed to crash my version (I

am usually pretty good at making things break and

did succeed rapidly with the beta test version, but

this release has, so far, beaten me). Advanced users

who had produced their own macros for version

13 will find that either they are no longer needed

because of the additional features now available,

or they can be converted easily for this version.

What is different? There are enhancements to the

statistical features, user interface and data input

and output facilities. The box at the end of this

review, which is taken from the MINITAB help

section, lists all these developments.

As this review is printed in Teaching Statistics

, it

is appropriate to consider whether version 14 is

a better teaching tool than its predecessor. I had

found version 13 to be effective in a secondary

school and have used it with students as young as

13. It goes without saying that most of the power

of MINITAB will not be used by these early learn-

ers (but I wonder if any user uses all of its power?).

Students seem to be good at ignoring the menu

options they do not need and learning to use the

ones they do. Version 14 is an improvement on

version 13 in a number of ways.

Menu options now come with their own icons.

Being an old fogey, I think I prefer just words, but

young people seem to be much more at home with

icons on the computer screen. The icons that areprovided can only be an aid to learning, as well as

easing the use for students. A great deal of thought

must have gone into producing these icons. In

most cases they do give a good visual idea of what

the menu option is. Some, like the pie chart option,

are pretty obvious, others less so, but effective when

you have understood them (e.g. the staircase for step-

wise regression), but a few have defeated MIN-

ITABs imagination (we have just 2t as the icon

for a 2-sample t

test). Never mind the icons willshow students (at all levels) what is available and

help give them some idea of what the statistical

functions do. (Of course, it is possible to customize

your icons should you have the time and inspiration!)

The graph-drawing facilities have been enhanced.

MINITAB now allows you to do almost anything

you want to do to a graph within the package

there is no need to export to a graphics package

for further editing. The graph editing tools are

easy to operate and students familiar with atypical drawing package will have no difficulty in

using them effectively. Graphs may be exported as

stand-alone objects in a variety of formats. Only

one format (MGF MINITAB Graph Format)

is an object-oriented type. This is a pity the

others are essentially bit-mapped images which have

lost the structural integrity of the vector image and

consume vastly more memory and disk space (40

times as much space on one file I tried). However,

any graphs pasted from MINITAB into packages

which support OLE can be edited as they could bein MINITAB. Because MGF is specific to MIN-

ITAB, it cannot be loaded into other packages. There

are some vector graphic formats for the PC (e.g.

WMF, CGM) it is a pity that graphs could not be

exported in these formats too. On the positive side,

MGF files can be reloaded into MINITAB and re-

edited, whereas the bit-mapped images cannot.

One feature of statistical packages in general,

which students (and teachers) can find off-putting

at first, is that data are held as single values rather

than in frequency tables. After years of training

students to gather data efficiently in tabular form,

it seems odd to encourage them now to enter data

item by item. MINITAB 14 allows graph drawing

from frequency table data. This means that data

already held in frequency tables can be imported

into MINITAB, or single-item data in MINITAB

can be summarized as a frequency data table within

MINITAB. From these tables, graphs can be drawn

directly. One feature of many graph-drawing

packages (including Excel) is that pie charts can be

produced, by default, as misleading and statisticallyunacceptable three-dimensional monstrosities. I tried


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Teaching Statistics. Volume 27, Number 1, Spring 2005

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to force MINITAB to give me one of these evil

graphs, but failed. Well done, MINITAB!

Other improved facilities which will be useful in

schools include the export of project reports and

worksheets as HTML pages. Data import now

brings Excel files with multiple sheets into separate

MINITAB worksheets. On previous versions I found

importing CSV files awkward and always resortedto loading them into a spreadsheet before copying

to MINITAB via the clipboard. Version 14 allows

CSV data to be imported directly although, irritat-

ingly, the CSV file must be renamed with the .TXT

extension in order for MINITAB to recognize it.

The MINITAB help features are comprehensive

and clear. I think, for the first time, that I prefer

the on-line help of MINITAB to a conventional,

hernia-inducing, printed manual. There is a small

manual provided with the CD-ROM and this is

a masterpiece. It does have a concise reference

section at the end which is helpful but the real

strength of the manual lies in the way it teaches

you both about MINITAB and about statistics. It

takes the reader through one of the sample data

sets, performing increasingly complex statistical

operations on it. At every stage, however, it tells

the user not only what to do but also what thepurpose of the operation is. I used to tell my

students that statistics was a two-stage process

Drawing Pictures and Drawing Conclusions. This

manual works in that way. You can throw out

your old lesson plans now. No need to write new

ones just follow this MINITAB manual.

In summary then, in spite of the enhanced power of

MINITAB, it also has increased value as a teaching

tool, even at the simplest statistical levels. Buy it today.

CHRIS DU FEU

New and enhanced features in MINITAB 14 (reproduced from their Whats New help file)

Graphics

New ways to create, customize, and arrange graphs. New graphs and advanced editing capabilities

that are simple, powerful, and intuitive.

Control Charts

New control charts including multivariate EWMA and Hotellings T2 control chart.

Quality Tools

Cause and effect diagram improvement, capability analysis for normal and nonnormal multiple

variables, measurement systems analysis tools, Capability Sixpack, and more.

Reliability/Survival Analysis

A broad range of reliability test plans and repairable systems analyses to make the most of your

research and system improvements.

Design of ExperimentsAdditions include variability analysis, pre-processing of responses, prediction of response for predic-

tor variables, and improvements to all aspects of design creation.

Regression

Release 14 adds partial least squares to its regression battery. Developed for use with ill-condi-

tioned data, the procedure contains 15 built-in graphs.

Stat

New tests of independence and measures of association, as well as improvements to many Basic

Statistics items.

Data WindowA more flexible data window allows currency data, can be saved as HTML, and more.


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Teaching Statistics. Volume 27, Number 1, Spring 2005

Data and File I/O

Minitab now allows you to save in HTML format and offers expanded flexibility in data types, data

generation, and spreadsheet importing.

Customizing Defaults

Tailor Minitabs menus, toolbars, and preferences to best meet your needs and simplify the tasks you

perform most often.

DocumentationMinitabs new HTML Help simplifies navigation and makes printing more convenient. Expanded

StatGuide covers multivariate, time series, nonparametrics, and more.

Data Sets

New data sets provide appropriate data for tutorials and exploring Help examples.

Updates to Command Language

Minitab now allows access to more functionality through additional command language, and many

cumbersome commands have been streamlined.

minitab 14 review - statistics teaching

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