Jon,
I have always used Excel for my 200 level Plant Structure and Function
course that requires students to carry out 5 experiments from start to
finish, collect and analyze data and write a report for each. I
schedule one full two hour lab period during the semester to explain
step by step how to use a word processing program (Word or Wordperfect)
in order to prepare a report and Excel to analyze and graph the data. I
find that the only real difficulty is explaining how to do Y-error bars
using their calculated standard errors of the means. The first lab of
the semester requires the students to manually go through the exercise
of calculating means, variances, standard deviations and standard
errors. They are generally so happy to find a program that will do all
of these things for them, that they have no complaints about learning
how to use it. The combination of statistical and graphic capabilities
are sufficiently great that I feel that anything less sophisticated is
not worth using. Also it is in the student's best interest to invest
the time to learn it if they ever have any intention of doing anything
scientific for the rest of their lives.
Cheers,
Gerry
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