120MP Lab 8 Regression Analysis in Minitab: Answers
120MP Lab 8 Regression Analysis in Minitab: Answers
The following data regarding a particular model of car are in the first sheet of the spreadsheet
Lab17.xls
Mileage (thousands) 19 41 33 59 96 67
Price (£) 3250 2650 2100 1650 1250 1100
Familiarise yourself with the following Minitab commands and output for carrying out a
regression analysis.
You could obtain the correlation coefficient r by simply square rooting R-square on a
calculator, or using
Stat > Basic Statistics > Correlation in Minitab
120MP 1
Trees Exercise
The second sheet of the Lab17.xls spreadsheet contains the trunk diameter and height (feet),
and the trunk volume (cubic feet) for 31 cherry trees.
The purpose of this exercise is to find a way of predicting the volume of wood in a tree from
either its diameter, height, or some simple combination of both measurements.
3. What do you notice about the relationship between volume and height?
Variability in volume increases with height
4. Show that diameter is a better predictor of volume than height? Why is this do you think?
Correlation between volume and height is only 0.598
Height of tree is not the same as length of trunk – could have long branches
5. What is the regression equation for predicting volume from diameter? What value is R-Sq?
7. Obtain a (point) prediction for the volume of a cherry tree of diameter 9 inches. Also give a
95% prediction interval, and comment on it
8.65 (-0.44 , 17.73) very wide and includes zero
8. Assuming that a tree is roughly cylindrical, what combination of height and diameter do you
think would be a better predictor of a tree’s volume?
H x D2
9. Use the Calc > Calculator facility to create this combination as a new variable.
10. Using this new combination as your predictor variable, find a new regression line to predict
the volume of a cherry tree, and investigate how good a fit it is
V = -0.297 + 0.306HD2 R2 = 97.8% residual plot random
So good fit
11. Save your report / project
120MP 2