SAS Institute's StatView 5.0
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The SAS Institute's StatView 5.0 statistical package is an outstanding statistical data analysis program that is appropriate for all levels of statisticians, from students beginning their study of statistics through professionals engaged in serious advanced analyses.
The graphical user interface and elegant output make this statistics program a powerful teaching tool compared to other traditional spreadsheet programs and textbooks. Data entry is via a familiar spreadsheet format, with data definition being obvious and transparent to most new users. Data may be imported from Excel, SPSS or from other common file formats. Graphics are simply generated with a few clicks of the mouse, and the user controls every format aspect of output tables and graphics.
StatView has distinct advantages over popular spreadsheet programs used in some beginning statistics classes. It is superior to spreadsheets and their add-ins for analyzing and graphing data. Its user and statistical reference manuals, ease of use, common statistical terminology, analyses, graphics and commanding output exceed such programs as Excel. StatView is a cross-platform program, while Excel is platform specific. And StatView has a greater variety of analyses, graphics, formulae and routines than Excel.
As a teacher educator, I have taught statistics to graduate students in education for years (three to six sections each year), and I have never used a program that students enjoy as much as they do StatView. During the 2000 fall semester, I required my students to learn both Excel and StatView. After students learned to enter, analyze and graph data, they began comparing the two programs. My students found that using StatView required less than a quarter of the time necessary to accomplish such tasks as data definition, entry, analyses and graphics than in Excel.
My students preferred using StatView over most common spreadsheet programs, traditional textbooks and other statistical analysis programs. Many of them began using the program even though they lacked computer experience or computer skills. The ease with which my students learned to use StatView enabled them to focus on the what and the why of statistical concepts, analyses and graphics rather than on how to structure one task after another. Instead of focusing on data entry and how to write formulae for analyses, interpretation of output became critical.
Douglas R. Knox, Ph.D.
Visiting Professor
New Mexico Highlands University,
School of Education
The SAS Institute's StatView 5.0 statistical package is an outstanding statistical data analysis program that is appropriate for all levels of statisticians, from students beginning their study of statistics through professionals engaged in serious advanced analyses.
The graphical user interface and elegant output make this statistics program a powerful teaching tool compared to other traditional spreadsheet programs and textbooks. Data entry is via a familiar spreadsheet format, with data definition being obvious and transparent to most new users. Data may be imported from Excel, SPSS or from other common file formats. Graphics are simply generated with a few clicks of the mouse, and the user controls every format aspect of output tables and graphics.
StatView has distinct advantages over popular spreadsheet programs used in some beginning statistics classes. It is superior to spreadsheets and their add-ins for analyzing and graphing data. Its user and statistical reference manuals, ease of use, common statistical terminology, analyses, graphics and commanding output exceed such programs as Excel. StatView is a cross-platform program, while Excel is platform specific. And StatView has a greater variety of analyses, graphics, formulae and routines than Excel.
As a teacher educator, I have taught statistics to graduate students in education for years (three to six sections each year), and I have never used a program that students enjoy as much as they do StatView. During the 2000 fall semester, I required my students to learn both Excel and StatView. After students learned to enter, analyze and graph data, they began comparing the two programs. My students found that using StatView required less than a quarter of the time necessary to accomplish such tasks as data definition, entry, analyses and graphics than in Excel.
My students preferred using StatView over most common spreadsheet programs, traditional textbooks and other statistical analysis programs. Many of them began using the program even though they lacked computer experience or computer skills. The ease with which my students learned to use StatView enabled them to focus on the what and the why of statistical concepts, analyses and graphics rather than on how to structure one task after another. Instead of focusing on data entry and how to write formulae for analyses, interpretation of output became critical.
Douglas R. Knox, Ph.D.
Visiting Professor
New Mexico Highlands University,
School of Education
Contact Information
SAS Institute Inc.
Cary, NC
(919) 677-8000
www.sas.com
This article originally appeared in the 10/01/2001 issue of THE Journal.