The last decade has seen a rapid increase in the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and the analysis of spatial data is an important component of this development. Spatial statistics is a relatively young subject and, although there are useful textbooks on spatial statistics theory, there is virtually no literature on how to teach spatial statistical concepts and techniques. This paper suggests ways of teaching some of spatial statistical analysis without recourse to matrix algebra and vectors. By using the graphical features in Excel it is possible to illustrate and explain the concepts behind the statistical techniques in GIS. The interactive and dynamic features of Excel enable students to investigate the effects of changing the spatial location of the data and to develop an understanding of spatial dependence and its impact on Kriging and regression techniques.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education