Using Excel for Statistics

Tips and Warnings

November 2000

University of Reading
Statistical Services Centre
Biometrics Advisory and
Support Service to DFID
 Contents
1. Introduction 3

1.1 Data Entry and Management 3

1.2 Basic descriptive statistics 4
1.3 Pivot Tables 5
1.4 Probability Distributions 5
1.5 Hypothesis tests 6
1.6 Analysis of Variance 6
1.7 Regression and Correlation 7

2. Adding to Excel 9

3. Conclusions 10

Appendix - Excel for Pivot Tables 11

What Pivot Tables do 11
Creating a Pivot Table 11
To create a Pivot Table from data in a list: 11
Pivot table - Example 1 12
Making Changes to a pivot table 14
Changing the Table Layout 14
Adding a field 14
Changing Field Properties 15
Adding or removing Totals 16
Tables of Counts and Percentages 17
Pivot table - Example 2 18
Tables of Percentages 18
Nesting Factors in a Table 20
Formatting Tables 21
Detailed Information on Table Cells 22

© 2000 Statistical Services Centre, The University of Reading, U.K.

1. Introduction
The availability of spreadsheets that include facilities for data management and
statistical analysis has changed the way people manage their information. Their
power and ease of use have given new opportunities for data analysis, but they have
also brought new problems and challenges for the user.
Excel is widely used for the entry and management of data. Some points are given in
this guide, but these topics are covered in more detail in a companion document,
entitled "The Disciplined Use of Spreadsheets for Data Entry"
In this guide we point out strengths, and weaknesses, when using Excel for statistical
tasks. We include data management, descriptive statistics, pivot tables, probability
distributions, hypothesis tests, analysis of variance and regression. We give the
salient points as tips and warnings. For those who need more than Excel we list some
of the ways that users can add to its facilities, or use Excel in combination with other
software. Finally we give our conclusions about the use of Excel for statistical work.
As an appendix we include more detailed notes about tabulation. Excel's facilities for
Pivot tables are excellent and this is an underused facility.

1.1 Data Entry and Management

The key point on data management is to enter or organise the data so they are in
Excel's "list format". The figure below shows what this means.

This is NOT a list This IS a list

© SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings 3

In the tips below we emphasise mainly the topics that relate to data management.
There is more on facilities for data entry in our guide devoted to that topic.

Tips Warnings
Whenever possible use Lists to keep your data
Use “names” to refer to each column of data.
Keep column names short; some statistical packages have
problems reading names longer than 8 characters.
Do not mix data with analysis or plots in the same
worksheet.
If you use Excel 97 or a later version, become familiar with
the facilities available for data entry under the Data menu, in
particular Form and Validation.
If you need to enter character data: Be aware that Excel only
(1) Keep them aligned to the left handles dates after
(2) Do not enter blanks as the initial characters of a cell 1st January 1900.
Use numerical codes for any well defined classification
variable,
e.g. Gender: 0 = Female, 1 = Male.
Use the VLOOKUP function in combination with numerical
codes to display text values attached to the numbers.
Filters can be used to restrict attention to subsets of the data
Sorting facilities work well for a maximum of up to 3
sorting criteria.
Become familiar with the use of relative and absolute
references.

1.2 Basic descriptive statistics

Excel has a large range of statistical functions that are very useful. However before
you use them make sure you understand what Excel is actually returning with each
function. Summary statistics can be obtained directly from these functions or else
from the Analysis Tool, available from the Tools menu.

4 © SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings

 Tips Warnings
Functions are a very powerful feature of
Excel.
We have found that all the statistical
functions that we have used work well and
reliably.
Excel’s graphing capability is biased While some Excel charts are useful for
towards business users. statistical work, some charts which
statistical analyses use routinely are not
available.
There are a number of pre-packed There are some problems with
statistical tools in the “Analysis ToolPak”. terminology. For example Excel produces
You may have to install this on your a summary statistic labelled "Confidence
system. Install by selecting Add-Ins on the level" that is equal to half the width of a
Tools menu. 95% confidence interval for the mean. The
term confidence level is generally used in
statistics to describe the % confidence
attached to a confidence interval, for
example 95%.

1.3 Pivot Tables

The ability to summarise data in tables is very important. Excel's pivot tables are a
very powerful feature, and in this area Excel is better than many statistics packages.
Pivot tables are underused, even by those who use Excel for other statistical work, so
we have included an appendix that shows their use in more detail.

Tips Warnings
Pivot tables are one of the most powerful data summary tools
in Excel. It produces cross-tabulations based on data kept on a
list, a database or other pivot tables.
Pivot tables are also useful to reorganise data as well as to
provide summaries.

1.4 Probability Distributions

Excel's probability functions include all that would normally be found in a simple set
of statistical tables.

© SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings 5

 Tips Warnings
You can use the probability Make sure you understand what function is being
functions instead of a set of evaluated and between which limits.
statistical tables. Excel
produces values for the
Probability Density If you do not understand the results given by Excel
Function, Cumulative functions, Excel offers little help. This could lead to
Probabilities and the wrong conclusions.
Inverse Probability For example the function for the Student’s t-distribution:
Function for many of the TDIST does not specify which probability is returned.
most commonly used
statistical distributions. TDIST (1.96, 10, 1) = 0.0392
The 0.0392 represents the probability of a value equal to
or greater than 1.96 from a t-distribution with 10 degrees
of freedom. The Excel HELP is incorrect.
If you understand the The function FTEST claims to return the probability for
results of these functions, the F value in a one-tailed test for the null hypothesis that
Excel can be quite a the variances of two samples are equal. In fact it returns
powerful tool. the result for a two-tailed test.

1.5 Hypothesis tests

Excel includes tests to compare two means for paired and unpaired samples and also
tests to compare two variances.

Tips Warnings
The hypothesis test for the differences of We recommend against the overuse of
means, and for the variances, available statistical tests for one and two-sample
from the Analysis ToolPak, work well. problems. Confidence intervals are also
useful. Excel gives the components from
which you can calculate the intervals if
you know the formulae, but it would be
better if Excel gave the intervals directly.

1.6 Analysis of Variance

Excel's facilities for ANOVA require the data in a tabular form as shown in section
1.1, rather than in "list" format. If you have stored the data in list format, as we
recommend, then pivot tables can be used to reorganise the data, before using the
ANOVA.

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However, the range of designs that can be analysed is limited to one or two factors.
The weakness of Excel in this area indicates that you are reaching the end of Excel's
capabilities in statistics.

Tips Warnings
Except for Single Factor Analysis, Excel only works if the
number of replications is equal for all treatments (balanced
data).
Does not allow missing values.
Lacks flexibility in the model fitted.
Encourages bad practice for data storage.
Requires extra work if data have been stored appropriately.
Uses incorrect names for the analysis it performs.
Lacks diagnostic tools.
If you need to perform Gives the impression that it is possible to use Excel for
analysis of variance, Analysis of Variance when in fact its capabilities are very
avoid using Excel, unless limited. It is a very restrictive approach to analysing data,
you are dealing with which is not only unnecessary but also undesirable.
extremely simple
problems.

1.7 Regression and Correlation

Excel has facilities for simple and multiple regression. These are very limited
compared to those offered in any statistics package, both in the models that can be
fitted and in the diagnostics that enable the resulting equations to be examined
critically.

Tips Warnings
Before fitting a regression line plot your Do not move data points on a scatter plot.
data. Excel will change your original values to
the new position of your point!
The Regression tool works correctly for Ignore the ANOVA and regression
the estimation of regression coefficients, statistics when using the regression tool
their standard errors and the Analysis of for regression through the origin. They are
Variance for data sets without missing wrong.
values and when the intercept is included
in the model.

© SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings 7

The regression functions, such as SLOPE, The Regression tool allows the optional
LINEST and TREND can be very useful in calculation of residuals, and among them
studies when many regressions are needed standardised residuals are the most useful.
as an initial summary, for example in a However the definition of standardised
"repeated measures" study. The regression residuals used is not evident either in the
coefficients then become the data in the help or the documentation. We compared
subsequent stages of the analysis. the standardised residuals from Excel with
those calculated using known formulae.
None of the definitions tried coincided
with the one used by Excel.
Filters can be used to avoid observations Of the residual plots normally used, the
with missing values. two most important are plots of
standardised residuals against predicted
values and the normal probability plot.
Neither of these is directly available in the
regression tool.
If you need to fit regression models avoid
using Excel.

8 © SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings

2. Adding to Excel
The overall impression, from the tips and warnings above, is that Excel is a powerful
environment for data manipulation, summary and tabulation. Its graphical facilities,
though not covered in detail in this guide are also very strong. It is weaker on the
more advanced statistical methods such as ANOVA and regression. In this section we
explore the options that are available to users who need more statistical capabilities
than are available in Excel.
The alternatives include writing or commissioning special macros, supplementing
Excel's capabilities with an add-in, using a statistics package that is available as an
add-in, or using a standard statistics package.
Macros can be written in VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). The power and ease
of use of VBA will be a pleasant surprise to users who have programmed using
languages such as Fortran or ordinary Basic in the past. The complexity will be an
unpleasant surprise to those who have never programmed and are attracted to the
visual simplicity of Excel. We suggest that writing macros is not as daunting as it first
appears and should be considered by users who have repetitive tasks and who need to
automate some of the data manipulation tasks, where Excel is already strong.
We caution against users who wish to write macros to improve on the weaknesses in
Excel's statistical capabilities that have been mentioned above. Writing macros is
addictive and can become extremely time-consuming. There is also a danger that the
amateur macro writer will end by "re-inventing the wheel" yet again!
Many add-ins have been written to extend Excel's capabilities, providing boxplots,
improved regression and so on. These are generally free or quite cheap and may help
the user who just needs to extend Excel's capabilities a little.
There are also some stand-alone statistics packages that can function as Excel add-ins,
but our general view is that if they are needed, then the user should also investigate
combining their use of Excel, with the use of a standard statistics package.
Using a statistics package does not mean abandoning Excel. Many users do their data
preparation in Excel, and then transfer the data into a statistics package for the
analysis. All the standard statistics packages can read Excel files. The results can
then be reported directly, or transferred back to Excel for presentation graphs to be
added.

© SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings 9

3. Conclusions
Excel offers an exciting environment for data manipulation and initial data analysis.
Its pivot tables are particularly good for cross-tabulations and summary statistics and
provide a powerful tool for basic data analysis. The reliability of more advanced
statistical functions and wizards is variable.
There are some areas in which Excel can be used without reservation, such as the
hypothesis tests for means, or the probability functions. However, Excel's facilities
for analysis of variance or regression analysis have serious problems. Anyone
attempting to perform these types of analysis should be aware of the limitations of
Excel and above all of those cases where Excel generates wrong results. For
regression modelling, analysis of variance and other more advanced statistical
analyses it is better to move from Excel to an appropriate statistics package.

10 © SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings

 Appendix - Excel for Pivot Tables
What Pivot Tables do
 summarise or cross-tabulate data into tables of one, two or three dimensions
 can be modified interactively
 offer a range of summary statistics
 summarise data from various sources

Creating a Pivot Table

To create a Pivot Table, the data must be in list (database) format, i.e.
 records (cases) as rows
 fields as columns
 first row with field names
 no gaps between rows

To create a Pivot Table from data in a list:

 click on any cell in the list or database
 click PivotTable Report in the Data menu
 follow the PivotTable wizard’s instructions
At Step 1 of the PivotTable Wizard choose
 Microsoft Excel or database
 followed by Next >
Step 2 will look like this …

 If this is OK, confirm the data range by clicking Next >

© SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings 11

 Tip
You can use a name for the range containing the list.
Step 3 is the main step for designing the PivotTable:

The field names appear as a set of buttons on the right.

A PivotTable can be structured into one, two or three dimensions and these are
arranged in rows, columns and pages.
 The fields used for defining the table structure should be dragged into the ROW,
COLUMN and PAGE spaces.

Warning
The fields used for defining structure should normally be factors, i.e. discrete, categorical
variables (numeric, character or other types). Using a measurement variable could produce
a large table of nonsense.
The body of the table, labelled DATA, contains the variable(s) that you want to
summarise in the table. The data fields will usually be numeric, but other data types
are allowed, depending on what you want to summarise.

Pivot table - Example 1

The bank employment data used to produce these pivot tables were in a worksheet
containing information on 474 employees hired by a large employer. The worksheet
includes the salary, job category and several other human resource variables.

12 © SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings

We go through the steps to produce a table of mean CURRENT SALARY, classified
by JOB and GENDER for the bank employment data.
 Drag JOB and GENDER into the ROW and COLUMN spaces, respectively.
 Drag the SALNOW variable (current salary) into the DATA space.
The default summary statistic for numeric data is the Sum. To change this, and make
other modifications,
 double-click on “Sum of SALNOW”.
This opens the PivotTable Field dialog box. This is used to specify what you want to
appear in the cells of the table, and how it should be formatted.

 First change the Name to “Mean Current Salary”.

 From the Summarize by: menu, select Average.
 Click the Number button to open the format dialog box. Select comma-separated
format with zero decimal places. (Other options available through the PivotTable
Field dialog box will discussed later.)
 When you have finished specifying the field, click OK to get back to the Step 3
dialog and click the Next button.
 You will be asked where you want the table to go. Select “New worksheet” and
click the Finish button.

The following table should appear in a newly created worksheet:

© SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings 13

Making Changes to a pivot table
Most operations on PivotTables can easily be made interactively, so it is not critically
important to get the table just right at the first shot.

Changing the Table Layout

 This is best done interactively, by dragging the field labels.
 It is difficult to describe but very easy to do; so is best learnt by practice.

Adding a field
For this and certain other operations, it is best to use the tools on the PivotTable
toolbar:

The first button on the toolbar gets you back to the PivotTable wizard. You can then
add (or remove) fields in the same way that you constructed the table.
In this example, let us add a breakdown by GROUP to the table.
 First click on any cell in the table (if you do not, you will be creating a new table).
Then click the PivotTable wizard button.
 Drag the field GROUP to the PAGE space and click the Finish button.

14 © SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings

The modified table gives the breakdown of mean salary by GROUP, GENDER and
JOB
 Try changing the table layout by dragging the field names into different positions.

Changing Field Properties

The second button on the PivotTable toolbar is used for editing field specifications.
The particular dialog box used for modifying a field depends on whether it is a DATA
field or a structure field (ROW, COLUMN or PAGE).
 First, to make changes to a field in the table structure (i.e. ROWS, COLUMNS or
PAGES), click on either the field name (e.g. GENDER), or one of its labels (e.g.
Male or Female)
 Click the PivotTable Field button on the toolbar.
You should get the following dialog box:

© SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings 15

 Tip
You can also access this dialog by double-clicking the fieldname in the PivotTable.

Some of the changes that can be made are:

 The field can be deleted.
 Its name can be changed.
 The orientation can be set (i.e. ROW, COLUMN or PAGE), although this can be
done more easily by dragging the field names.
 The summary statistic can be changed and subtotals selected.
 The box labelled Hide items is useful if you want to restrict the table to a subset of
values of the field, to exclude “Don’t knows” or missing value codes, for example.
 To edit a DATA field, first click on any DATA cell (or the field name) and then
click the PivotTable Field button on the toolbar. This opens the same dialog box
that appeared in constructing the table. You can make changes to the summary
statistic, number format, etc.

Adding or removing Totals

 First select the table.

 Choose the PivotTable drop-down menu from the toolbar, and open the Options…
dialog.

16 © SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings

 Grand totals for rows and columns can be switched off or on from these options.

Tables of Counts and Percentages

One of the most commonly required tables is a crosstabulation of counts of cases that
fall into all possible combinations of category variables. These, and the corresponding
percentage tables, are easily produced as PivotTables, provided care is taken with
missing values.
 To create a crosstabulation of counts, choose any field that has no empty cells as a
DATA field and select the summary statistic Count. This behaves just like the
spreadsheet function COUNTA(), which counts the number of non-empty cells in a
range.
 There is another statistic, called Count Nums, which performs like Count, but
enumerates all cells containing numbers. This statistic behaves like the
spreadsheet function COUNT(). For crosstabulations it is generally safer to use
Count.

Warning
The entire case (row) corresponding to an empty cell in a data field will be ignored
in the table. Check for empty cells in the data field before using it.

© SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings 17

Pivot table - Example 2
To get a crosstabulation of JOB by GENDER for the bank employment data:
 First decide on a field to be used for counting. The field ID is one possibility.
Check that there are no empty cells.
 In Step 3 of the PivotTable wizard, place the fields GENDER and JOB into the
COLUMN and ROW spaces, respectively.
 Drag the ID field into the DATA area and double-click on it to open the PivotTable
Field dialog box. Summarize by: Count and Name the field “No. of Cases”.

 Finishing off as in Example 1, you should get the following table:

Note that zero counts appear as empty cells.

Tables of Percentages
It is often more informative to present table counts as percentages. These are usually
row or column percentages, but other percentage bases are sometimes required.
To continue with Example 2, suppose we want row percentages instead of absolute
counts.
 Open the PivotTable Field dialog box for the data field.

18 © SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings

 Click on the Options>> button and look at options under "Show data as:

 Select % of row. Click on the Number button and select percentage format with
0 decimals. Click OK.

The result should be…

 To produce a table with both counts and row percentages, place two copies of the
ID field in the DATA area of the table, one with the Count statistic, the other with
“% of row”…

Here, both of the DATA fields are the ID variable, the first set up as a simple count
and the second as a row percentage.

© SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings 19

The resulting table is …

Nesting Factors in a Table

It is possible to use two or more factors to specify rows (or the columns or pages) of a
table. The effect of this is to nest the levels of each factor within those of the factor
preceding it in the same dimension. For example …

20 © SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings

produces this …

Formatting Tables
 To format the numbers in the cells of a PivotTable, use the PivotTable Field dialog
box, as before.
 Although many standard Excel formatting techniques can be applied directly to a
table, certain things cannot be done. For example, try changing the title “Grand
Total”.
 To have maximum formatting flexibility, make a copy of the entire table using
Paste Special, Paste Values. The copy can be formatted like any other Excel
range.

Here is a PivotTable after copying and formatting

© SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings 21

Detailed Information on Table Cells
You can get a complete listing of all cases that contribute to a selected cell (or total) in
a Pivot table by simply double-clicking the cell.
For example, the details underlying the selected cell in the table

are listed as …

Warning
A new worksheet is produced for each listing that you request in this way.

22 © SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings

© SSC 2000 – Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings 23
The Statistical Services Centre is attached to the Department of Applied Statistics at
The University of Reading, UK, and undertakes training and consultancy work on a
non-profit-making basis for clients outside the University.
These statistical guides were originally written as part of a contract with DFID to give
guidance to research and support staff working on DFID Natural Resources projects.
The available titles are listed below.
 Statistical Guidelines for Natural Resources Projects
 On-Farm Trials – Some Biometric Guidelines
 Data Management Guidelines for Experimental Projects
 Guidelines for Planning Effective Surveys
 Project Data Archiving – Lessons from a Case Study
 Informative Presentation of Tables, Graphs and Statistics
 Concepts Underlying the Design of Experiments
 One Animal per Farm?
 Disciplined Use of Spreadsheets for Data Entry
 The Role of a Database Package for Research Projects
 Excel for Statistics: Tips and Warnings
 The Statistical Background to ANOVA
 Moving on from MSTAT (to Genstat)
 Some Basic Ideas of Sampling
 Modern Methods of Analysis
 Confidence & Significance: Key Concepts of Inferential Statistics
 Modern Approaches to the Analysis of Experimental Data
 Approaches to the Analysis of Survey Data
 Mixed Models and Multilevel Data Structures in Agriculture
The guides are available in both printed and computer-readable form. For copies or
for further information about the SSC, please use the contact details given below.

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tel: SSC Administration +44 118 378 8025
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