INSTRUCTIONS FOR OBTAINING EXCEL OUTPUTS FOR Tasks 2 - 4

OF THE BEO1106 ASSIGNMENT.

The following step by step instructions are provided for you so that you are able to
obtain the Excel outputs required for completing tasks 2 - 4 of the Business Statistics
assignment tasks due in week 8.

Note that the specifics of these instructions, and hence the resulting outputs, refer to a
demonstration set of sample data contained in columns A to I, rows 1 to51 (including
column headings) of an MS Excel assignment data file. Because of this, the Excel
outputs that you obtain using your data will, with almost complete certainty, be different
to what you see in the demonstrations that follow.

As you perform the steps for each assignment task make sure you pay particular attention
to instructions regarding spreadsheet cell locations, modifying them where necessary to suit
your particular data set. This is important so that subsequent work on the assignment flows
consistently. Also, make sure that when you conclude an assignment work session you
progressively save your spreadsheet work and continue on with the saved file once you
recommence work in your next assignment work session.

Note: References to MS Excel and Word in this document are to version 2010 (installed in
computer laboratories at VU). For assistance with earlier versions of Excel/Word please see your
seminar leader.

Open your Excel file SamplePropertyData.xls which you created after the seminar in week 4.
The variables contained in this data file are as follows:

V1: Region around Melbourne where property is located (1 = North, 2 = West, 3 = East,
4 = Central)
V2: Property type (0 = Unit, 1 = House)
V3: Sale result (1 = Sold at auction, 2 = Passed-in, 3 = Private sale, 4 = Sold before auction)
V4: Building type (1 = Brick, 2 = Brick veneer, 3 = Weatherboard, 4 = Vacant land)
V5: Number of rooms
V6: Land size (Square metres)
V7: Sold Price ($000s)
V8: Advertised Price ($000s)

Column A (PN), contains the property identification numbers for the 400 properties.

Tables, Graphs and Numerical Summaries of Data

Assignment Task 2
In Task 2 you are required to use Excel to produce a Frequency Column Chart and a
Relative Frequency Pie-Chart for your sample to show the number and proportion,
respectively, of each building type.
Although the following steps demonstrate how to do this, note that the Excel outputs you
obtain will be different to what follows, as you will almost certainly be using different data
to that used in this demonstration.

Step 1:
Create a basic frequency table and column chart summary of the “Building type” sample
data.
Type the word bins in a cell in any unused column, say for example, J1.
In range J2:J5 type the individual “values” of the “Building type” categorical variable, V4,
i.e. 1 in cell J2, 2 in cell J3, 3 in cell J4 and 4 in cell J5.
From the Data menu (Analysis grouping) select Data Analysis (see the Additional
Learning Resources page of the unit website if Data Analysis does not appear under the
Analysis grouping on the Data menu).
Select Histogram from the Data Analysis Tools list and then select OK.

In the Histogram dialogue box you will need to specify, in the Input Range, the cell
locations of the “Building type” variable values i.e. e1:e51, if you wish to include reference
to the column heading, “V4”.
You will also need to specify, in the Bin Range, the cell locations of the individual
categorical variable “values” that you identified at the beginning of Step 1 i.e. j1:j5, if you
wish to include reference to the column heading, “bins”.
Tick the Labels box if the first cells in your Input Range and Bin Range specifications
contain column headings (as in this case).
Select New Worksheet Ply (if not specified by default) so that the output will appear on a
new worksheet of the MS Excel workbook.
Tick the Chart Output box in order to request a basic frequency table and column chart.
Select OK to obtain the basic frequency table and column chart.

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 Note: The frequency table and column chart provided by Excel at this point are very basic
and need to be refined so as to provide a more precise and informative summary of the
“Building type” data.
Step 2:
Modify the basic frequency table and frequency column chart output provided by Excel to
provide a more precise and informative summary of the “Building type” data.
The frequency table should make reference to the variable of interest. We can achieve this,
in this case, by typing the (abbreviated) words “Bld. type” over the column heading “bins”
in the Excel worksheet.
The categorical “values” 1, 2, 3 and 4 (in this case) in the frequency table should also be
changed to the more informative (abbreviated), “Br”, “BrV”, “Wbrd” and “VL”
respectively. Note that when you do this, these labels will automatically replace the
horizontal axis markings of 1, 2, 3 and 4 on the column chart.
The frequency table contains a row labelled “More” to cover the possibility of “values” in
the data set other than 1, 2, 3 and 4. Since there are no such values in this case the “More”
row is redundant and can be removed. To do so simply activate the “More” cell and then
from the Home menu (Cells grouping) access the Delete drop down menu and select Delete
Sheet Rows and the entire row containing the reference to “More” will be deleted from the
worksheet. Note that when you do this the marking on the horizontal axis of the column
chart specified as “More” will automatically disappear.

The column chart will also require some modification.

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 Firstly, note that the graph is incorrectly titled “Histogram”. The word “histogram” should
in fact be reserved for the equivalent graphical output for quantitative (or (real) numerical)
data. If a title is required for this graphical output a more correct and informative
description would be, in this case, “Frequency Column Chart for Building Type”. If you
left click on the title “Histogram” you will be able to delete the existing title before
replacing it with the more suitable title. You may need to adjust the font size (see Home
menu, Font grouping) to make the title more presentable.
Similarly the label for the horizontal axis, “bins”, should be replaced with a more
informative descriptive label for the variable of interest (in this case, say, “Building type”).
The legend on the right hand side of the graph (“Frequency”) is largely redundant as the
vertical axis is clearly labelled as such. This legend can be deleted by left clicking on it
and then pressing the delete key on your keyboard.
You may observe that the column chart is rather flat and has a rather imprecise scale on the
vertical axis. If this is the case these aspects can be rectified by left clicking on the white
Chart Area around the column chart (within the rectangular border) at which point you
should observe small sets of “dot” indicators appear around the perimeter of the border.
Clicking on and dragging down the indicators at the centre of the bottom edge of the border
will stretch out the column chart vertically and at the same time will increase the
graduations along the vertical axis.

Step 3:
Copy the graphical output into your MS Word assignment document to form part of your
completed assignment (Part II).
With the “dot” indicators still observable around the perimeter of the chart area border (left
click on the white Chart Area if this is not the case), select the Copy ( ) icon from the
Home menu (Clipboard grouping).

Open your MS Word document and then select the Paste ( ) icon from the Home menu
(Clipboard grouping) to insert the column chart into the document.

Step 4:
Create a basic (relative frequency) pie chart summary of the “Building type” sample data.
In MS Excel right click anywhere inside the Chart Area of the column chart you have just
constructed and then select Change Chart Type from the pop-up menu.
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 From the Change Chart Type Templates list select Pie and then OK to convert your
frequency column chart into a basic relative frequency pie chart.

Frequency Column Chart for Building Type

Note: The pie chart provided by Excel at this point may be incorrectly titled (in this case
“Frequency Column Chart …”) and is lacking in important detail (in particular the category
labels and relative frequencies corresponding to each sector).

Step 5:
Modify the basic (relative frequency) pie chart output provided by Excel to provide more
detail and clarity of presentation.
An incorrect or inappropriate title can be rectified by left clicking on it (as for the Column
Chart) and replacing it with a more appropriate description (perhaps “Pie Chart for Building
Type” in this case).
More detail can be provided (in the form of actual relative frequencies for each of the
categories as well as accompanying descriptive labels) by right clicking anywhere inside
the “pie” and selecting Add Data Labels from the pop-up menu (at which point frequency
counts for each category will appear in the sectors of your pie chart).
To obtain relative frequency (%) information relating to the various categories right click
again anywhere inside the “pie” and select Format Data Labels from the pop-up menu to
show the Format Data Labels dialogue box.
In the Format Data Labels list of Label Options tick the Category Name and Percentage
boxes and whatever Label Position (perhaps Outside End) you prefer.
Select Close to obtain the improved relative frequency pie chart.

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 Pie Char for Building Type
Frequency, VL,
4, 8%

Frequency, Br,
16, 32%
Frequency,
Wbrd, 13, 26%

Frequency, BrV,
17, 34%

Note: If your pie chart is “flat” you can stretch it out by repeating the procedure described
at the end of Step 2 for the column chart.
Step 6:
Copy the graphical output into your MS Word assignment document to form part of your
completed assignment (Part II).
Left click on the white Chart Area (at which point the “dot” indicators will appear around
the perimeter of the border) and then select the Copy icon from the Home menu.
Open your MS Word document and then select the Paste icon from the Home menu to
insert the pie chart into the document.
Assignment Task 3
In Task 3 you are required to use MS Excel to sort the “Sold Price” data in your sample as
a preliminary to manually determining percentile information for that data.
Although the following steps demonstrate how to do this, note that the Excel outputs you
obtain will be different to what follows, as you will almost certainly be using different data
to that used in this demonstration.
Step 1:
Sort the “Sold Price” sample data into ascending order.
With your Excel workbook open at the sample data worksheet, click on cell H2 and then
drag to highlight the entire contents of column H, rows 2 to 51.
From the Home menu select the Copy icon and then paste the contents of cells H2 to
H51 into any unused column, say, M1 to M50 (by activating cell M1 and the selecting
the Paste icon).
With cells M1 to M50 highlighted, from the Data menu, Sort and Filter grouping, select
the Sort Smallest to Largest ( ) icon at which point the original contents of cells M1
to M50 will be sorted into ascending order (with any blank cells, indicating that the
property did not sell, appearing at the bottom).
For the data that forms the basis of this demonstration there were five missing “Sold
Price” values resulting in the sorted data occupying cells M1 to M45 (and 5 blank cells
appearing in cells M46 to M50).

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Step 2:
Copy the sorted column of “Sold Price” sample data into a suitable number of smaller
columns (say five in this case) in your Excel worksheet as a prelude to a more manageable
transferral of the sorted data into a Word document.
Highlight cells M1 to M10 and then select the Copy icon (from the Home menu).
Activate an empty cell (say N1) which can be imagined to form the top left hand corner
of an empty block of five columns and ten rows stretching from cell N1 to R10.
Select Paste from the Home menu to transfer a copy of the first ten sorted “Sold Price”
data into cells N1 to N10.
The second group of ten sorted “Sold Price” data can now be copied into cells O1 to O10
by first highlighting cells M11 to M20 and repeating the “copy/paste” process just
performed (you will have to activate cell O1 before you perform the “paste” operation).
Repeating this process three more times will produce a copy of the sorted “Sold Price”
sample data into a block of up to five columns and ten rows (from cell N1 to R10).
For the data that forms the basis of this demonstration, the 45 sorted “Sold Price” values
occupied the block of almost five complete columns of ten rows from cell N1 to R5.

Step 3:
Copy the more manageable block of sorted “Sold Price” sample data into a MS Word
document to form part of your completed assignment.
Highlight the sorted data in columns N to R and then select the Copy icon from the Home
menu to facilitate the “pasting” of the block of up to five columns and ten rows into your
Word document.

Assignment Task 4
In Task 4 you are required to use Excel to produce a Descriptive Statistics table for the
“Sold Price” data in your sample.
Although the following steps demonstrate how to do this, note that the Excel outputs you
obtain will be different to what follows, as you will almost certainly be using different data
to that used in this demonstration.
Step 1:
Obtain a descriptive statistics table for the “Sold Price” sample data.
With your Excel workbook open at the sample data worksheet select Data Analysis from
the Data menu.
Select Descriptive Statistics from the Data Analysis Tools list and then select OK.

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In the Descriptive Statistics dialogue box you will need to specify, in the Input Range,
the cell locations of the sample “Sold Price” variable values. This will be most easily
achieved from column M after the sorting process of Step 1 of Task 4 above. For the data
that forms the basis of this demonstration the locations are M1:M45.
Grouped By: Columns needs to be selected (if not already by default) to indicate that the
data set for which numerical summaries are required is contained in a column (rather than
a row).
We will NOT tick the Labels in First Row box on this occasion since the first cell in the
Input Range, M1, does not contain a column heading.
Select New Worksheet Ply (if not already by default) so that the output will appear on a
new worksheet of the MS Excel workbook.
Tick the Summary statistics box to obtain a comprehensive set of numerical summaries.
Select OK to obtain the basic descriptive statistics table.

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 Column1

Mean 659.847872
Standard Error
64.2263868
Median 560
Mode #N/A
Standard Deviation
440.313924
Sample Variance
193876.352
Kurtosis 9.61273243
Skewness 2.72504436
Range 2498
Minimum 152
Maximum 2650
Sum 31012.85
Count 47
Note: The descriptive statistics table provided by Excel at this point is a little raw with
regard to the information it provides and needs to be modified so as to provide a more
informative summary of the “Sold Price” sample data.
Step 2:
Modify the basic descriptive statistics table output provided by Excel to provide a more
informative summary.
The most obvious deficiency of the initial table provided by Excel is that the table does
not make explicit reference to the variable of interest (including units). In this case the
heading “Column1” is completely inadequate. This can be rectified by replacing it with
“Sold Price ($000)”.
Note also that the left hand column is so narrow that it has truncated some of the
descriptions relating to the particular numerical summaries provided. Expanding the
column until all descriptions are visible in full will overcome this problem. Alternatively
(or in addition) lengthy descriptors could be replaced by abbreviations that still clearly
identify the numerical summary concerned (e.g. Std. Deviation for Standard Deviation).
The number of decimal places quoted in the descriptive statistics table should reflect the
data being summarised and/or the particular summary under consideration. Generally,
numerical summaries measured in the same units as the original data should contain no
more than one or two decimal places more than that contained in the raw data. So, in this
case, with V7 often being recorded to one decimal place, two or three decimal places
would be more than enough for most of the numerical summaries provided in the
descriptive statistics table. For our purposes measures such as kurtosis and skewness will
not require any more than two-decimal place accuracy.
Taking consideration of the accuracy issues raised above, for the “Sold Price” descriptive
statistics table, the numerical contents of cells B3, B4, B7 and B8 could be rounded to
three decimal places by clicking on the cell (or groups of cells) and then clicking on the
Decrease Decimal ( ) icon in the Number grouping of the Home menu until the
required number of decimal places is obtained. Similarly the contents of cells B9 and
B10 could be rounded to two decimal places.
As a result of the modifications referred to above the improved “Sold Price” descriptive
statistics table appears as:

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 Sold Price($000) Column1

Mean 659.848
Standard Error 64.226
Median 560
Mode #N/A
Standard Deviation 440.314
Sample Variance 193876.352
Kurtosis 9.61
Skewness 2.73
Range 2498
Minimum 152
Maximum 2650
Sum 31012.85
Count 47

Step 3:
Copy the descriptive table into your MS Word assignment document to form part of your
completed assignment.
Left click on cell A1 of the descriptive statistics table and then drag to highlight the entire
contents of columns A and B. Then select the Copy icon from the Home menu.
Open your MS Word document and then select the Paste icon from the Home menu to
insert the descriptive statistics table into the document.

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