StatCrunch

Key takeaways

StatCrunch belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect StatCrunch to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of StatCrunch from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

StatCrunch is a web-based statistical software application from Pearson Education. StatCrunch was originally created for use in college statistics courses. As a full-featured statistics package, it is now also used for research and for other statistical analysis purposes.

History American statistics professor Webster West created StatCrunch in 1997. Over the next 19 years West assisted by others added many more statistical procedures and graphing capabilities, and made user interface improvements. In 2005, West received two awards for StatCrunch: the CAUSEweb Resource of the Year Award and the MERLOT Classics Award. In 2013, the StatCrunch Java code was rewritten in JavaScript in order to avoid Java browser security problems, and so that it would run on iOS and Android. In 2015, new ways of importing data were added, including importing multi-page data directly from Wikipedia tables and other Web sources, and also importing with drag-and-drop for various data formats. In 2016, StatCrunch was acquired by Pearson Education, which had already been serving as the primary distributor of StatCrunch for several years.

Software A StatCrunch license is included with many of Pearson's statistical textbooks. Because StatCrunch is a web application, it works on multiple platforms, including Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. Data in StatCrunch is represented in a "data table" view, which is similar to a spreadsheet view, but unlike spreadsheets, the cells in a data table can only contain numbers or text. Formulas cannot be stored in these cells. There are many ways to import data into StatCrunch. Data can be typed directly into cells in the data table. Entire blocks of data may be cut-and-pasted into the data table. Text files (.csv, .txt, etc.) and Microsoft Excel files (.xls and .xlsx) can be drag-and-dropped into the data table. Data can be pulled into StatCrunch directly from Wikipedia tables or other Web tables, including multi-page tables. Data can be loaded directly from Google Drive and Dropbox. Shared data sets saved by other StatCrunch community users can be searched for by title or keyword and opened in a data table. Graphs, results, and reports created by StatCrunch can be shared with other users, in addition to the sharing of data sets. StatCrunch has a library of data transformation functions. StatCrunch can also recode and reorganize data. All data is stored in memory, and all processing happens on the client, so response is fast, even with large data sets. StatCrunch can interact with multiple graphs simultaneously. If a user selects a data point on one graph, then that same data point is highlighted on all other displayed graphs. In addition to standard statistical and graphing procedures, StatCrunch has a collection of about forty "applets" which illustrate statistical concepts interactively.

See also List of statistical packages Comparison of statistical packages

References

Further reading Glenn Ledder, Jenna P. Carpenter, Timothy D. Comar Undergraduate Mathematics for the Life Sciences: Models, Processes, and Directions The Mathematical Association of America (2013) Jonathan Foster Collaborative Information Behavior: User Engagement and Communication Information Science Reference (2010) Peter C. Bruce Introductory Statistics and Analytics: A Resampling Perspective Wiley (2015) Bert Wachsmuth "Statistics in the Classroom on Touch-based Smart Phones" The Impact of Pen and Touch Technology on Education, Part of the Human–Computer Interaction Series pp 289–296, Springer (2015) Webster West "Social Data Analysis with StatCrunch: Potential Benefits to Statistical Education" UCLA Department of Statistics (2009) Nancy Leveille et al. "A survey of no (or low) cost statistical software packages for business statistics" University of Houston-Downtown (2011) Renata Phelps, Kath Fisher, Allan H Ellis Organizing and Managing Your Research: A Practical Guide for Postgraduates, page 224, SAGE Publications Ltd (February 22, 2007) Neil J. Salkind Statistics for People Who (Think They) Hate Statistics: The Excel Edition, page 331, SAGE Publications Inc. (July 21, 2006) Megan Mocko, author. Dani Ben-Zvi, Katie Makar, editors The Teaching and Learning of Statistics: International Perspectives, pp. 219, 224. Springer International Publishing (2016) Bert Wachsmuth, author. Edited by Tracy Hammond, Stephanie Valentine, Aaron Adler, Mark Payton "Statistics in the Classroom on Touch-based Smart Phones" (Chapter 30) in The Impact of Pen and Touch Technology on Education Springer International Publishing (2015)

External links Official website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with StatCrunch

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what StatCrunch claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to StatCrunch before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about StatCrunch ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of StatCrunch

In research: StatCrunch appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses StatCrunch in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: StatCrunch is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1997 software, Educational math software, Pearson plc, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for StatCrunch outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study StatCrunch in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what StatCrunch means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain StatCrunch out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is StatCrunch in simple terms?

StatCrunch is a web-based statistical software application from Pearson Education. StatCrunch was originally created for use in college statistics courses.

Why does StatCrunch matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study StatCrunch?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on StatCrunch.