Many students find statistics difficult and unattractive. There is therefore an urgent need for teachers to consider new approaches and tools for teaching the subject. Many have advocated the use of microcomputers as teaching tool. When using microcomputers for teaching purposes, it is necessary to consider which software could be regarded as good teaching tools. A good teaching tool should, in my opinion, satisfy at least the following three criteria: (i) It should be reasonable priced, and readily available. (ii) It should be flexible thereby allowing teachers to introduce modifications in response to the special needs of their students. (iii) It should be able to demonstrate the basic concepts of the subject. The ease in which spreadsheets can be used to convey basic statistical concept is demonstrated in what follows.
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