In Excel 2, you'll take the ideas from the Presentation and the tools you've learned in Excel 1 and solve a (simulated) real-life problem.
The scenario is as follows:
You are to pretend that you are the Dean of a brand new college and that you and your faculty are in the process of creating for the freshman class programs in each of the following three areas: Mathematics, History, and French.
You have been provided by the Admissions Office with some information on each of the 500 students who have been admitted. Specifically, you have been given their scores on a diagnostic exam for each of these three areas.
Now, you recognize that these 500 students come with different skills and abilities in each of these areas. Some of their high schools, for example, may have had great Math teachers but not such great French teachers. Furthermore, some of the students may have joined these high schools with very different background, and so, teachers aside, may not have accomplished very much in a given area.
So, as Dean, you want to make sure that the METHOD of teaching each of these three areas has be designed with the abilities and accomplishments of the students in mind.
The following spreadsheet contains three data sets.
Each data set is on a separate TAB. The first tab is Math, the second is History and the third is French.
There is a fourth tab, called Conclusions.
Your ASSIGNMENT is to analyze each of the three data sets via the tools you have learned in Lab 1, and based on your analysis, make some recommendations about how each program might be designed. See below for the suggested format for your answer.
Your recommendations/analysis should be put on the fourth/conclusion tab. You'll need to write one recommendation/analysis for each of the three program areas of Math, History, and French.
[NOTE: The fourth tab has been formatted with Column A very wide and set for WORDWRAP mode. That is, you can just type in the appropriate row of column A and the text will wrap around each line. Or, you can type your conclusions in WORD or NOTEPAD and past them into the appropriate row. If you do paste your answer into a row, then, sadly, you'll need to do the following to get the text to wordwrap. Highlight column A by clicking on the column label A on the top of the column. From the menus, choose Format, Cells and then put a check in the Wrap Text box. and then choose OK. There might be a DIMMED check already in the box. Click the box a few times and make sure that the check in the box is solid and not shaded.]
You SHOULD say something like each of the following: [NOTE: replace the ***'s with your own words]:
"Well, it's likely that we have to (or can) do "****" in Math (for example) because the data shows that "*****."
The reason the data shows "*****" is because of "*****."
In addition we better not do "******" or we will have problems, because of "****."
My guess is that reason that the data show "****" is that "****" happened.
Here is an example: Let's assume that on the French scores, virtually everyone got nearly a nearly perfect score. That is, nearly every student is in fact rather fluent in French. You'd be able to see that easily from a HISTOGRAM of the data.
So, you might say, in this case:
Well, it's likely that we can make the French course very challenging. In fact, it might make sense to teach, say, the History class in French. It would also be a good idea to have a summer in program in France and we could do this the first summer. We can do these things because the data show that virtually ALL of these students are very accomplished in French.
The reason the data show this is that the class average on this diagnostic was 98 (pretend). Also, the standard deviation was 2.6, showing that the students' scores were clustered tightly around the mean. The histogram also shows this clustering, as except for two students, all the scores are in the bin (95,100].
Now, only two students scored below 90, as the histogram shows. These two students, in fact, were in the bin (30,35]. So they need to be handled in a separate tutorial program. But the rest are clearly ready for some advanced work. It does not make sense to use Professor X, for he is more skilled in teaching students with problems. We certainly could use Prof X for these two students who need some extra help. We'll have to hire a native French speaker for the other students.
It is rather strange that virtually all of these 500 students speak such good French. You know, this is so unusual, that perhaps our exam was compromised and someone got a copy of the answer sheet. No, wait, I forgot. We are a Canadian school located in the heart of Quebec and we (nearly) ALL speak French!
As indicated above, all your Excel work (functions and graphs) should be on the first three tabs of the spreadsheet
Please use text to label what you have computed.
And, recall, your analyses/conclusions for each of Math, History, and French should be on fourth, conclusion, tab.
Hand in the (digital) spread sheet to your instructor via the method you are told by your instructor.
Excel 2 is worth 30 points.