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What in the World Is a VIF?
When you run a regression in Minitab, you receive a huge batch of output, and often it can be hard to know where to start. A lot of times, we get overwhelmed and just go straight to p-values, ignoring...
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Combining Tools of the Past and Present: The i-Test
Just 100 years ago, very few statistical tools were available and the field was largely unknown. Since then, there has been an explosion of tools available, as well as ever-increasing awareness and use...
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10 Statistical Terms Designed to Confuse Non-Statisticians
Statisticians say the darndest things. At least, that's how it can seem if you're not well-versed in statistics. When I began studying statistics, I approached it as a language. I quickly noticed that...
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Coming Soon: The Big Ten 4th Down Calculator
Down 7-0 midway through the 1st quarter of the College Football Playoff National Championship game, Ohio State was facing a 4th and 2 at the Oregon 35 yard line. Buckeye coach Urban Meyer had a...
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Kappa Studies : What Is the Meaning of a Kappa Value of 0?
Kappa statistics are commonly used to indicate the degree of agreement of nominal assessments made by multiple appraisers. They are typically used for visual inspection to identify defects. Another...
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High School Researchers: What Do We Do with All of this Data?
by Colin Courchesne, guest blogger, representing his Governor's School research team. High-level research opportunities for high school students are rare; however, that was just what the New Jersey...
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The Bubble Plot: It's A Beautiful Display
As you may know, we added Bubble Plots to Minitab's menu of meaningful graphs in Release 17. If you are familiar, I think you'll agree that Bubble Plots make a perfect addition to the pantheon of...
View ArticleThe Null Hypothesis: Always “Busy Doing Nothing”
The 1949 film A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court includes the song “Busy Doing Nothing,” and this could be written about the Null Hypothesis as it is used in statistical analyses. The words to...
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Big Ten 4th Down Calculator: Creating a Model for Expected Points
If you want to use data to predict the impact of different variables, whether it's for business or some personal interest, you need to create a model based on the best information you have at your...
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Interpreting Results from a Split-Plot Design
When performing a design of experiments (DOE), some factor levels may be very difficult to change—for example, temperature changes for a furnace. Under these circumstances, completely randomizing the...
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Considering Defects and Defectives via the Republican Primary
The difference between defects and defectives lets you answer questions like whether to use a P chart or a U chart in Minitab, so it’s a handy difference to be able to explain. Of course, if you’ve...
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Using Probability Distribution Plots to See Data Clearly
When we take pictures with a digital camera or smartphone, what the device really does is capture information in the form of binary code. At the most basic level, our precious photos are really just a...
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Who Will Win in 2016? Ask Someone from Connecticut
There's more data available today than ever before, and with statistical software such as Minitab it only takes a couple of seconds to get some significant insights, whether it concerns how to make...
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Chi-Square Analysis: Powerful, Versatile, Statistically Objective
To make objective decisions about the processes that are critical to your organization, you often need to examine categorical data. You may know how to use a t-test or ANOVA when you’re comparing...
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Calculating the Probability of Converting on 4th Down
Imagine a multi-million dollar company that released a product without knowing the probability that it will fail after a certain amount of time. “We offer a 2 year warranty, but we have no idea what...
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Graphing Wastewater in China
Newsweek's recent article, The Environmental Disaster in Your Closet, led me (through Greenpeace's Detox Catwalk) to an interesting new data set on the web. Since I like public data, I thought I'd...
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Monitoring Rare Events with G Charts
Rare events inherently occur in all kinds of processes. In hospitals, there are medication errors, infections, patient falls, ventilator-associated pneumonias, and other rare, adverse events that cause...
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The Danger of Overfitting Regression Models
In regression analysis, overfitting a model is a real problem. An overfit model can cause the regression coefficients, p-values, and R-squared to be misleading. In this post, I explain what an overfit...
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Should Virginia Tech Always Onside Kick Against Ohio State?
In 2007, the Crayola crayon company encountered a problem. Labels were coming off of their crayons. Up to that point, Crayola had done little to implement data-driven methodology into the process of...
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Regression with Meat Ants: Analyzing a Count Response (Part 1)
Ever use dental floss to cut soft cheese? Or Alka Seltzer to clean your toilet bowl? You can find a host of nonconventional uses for ordinary objects online. Some are more peculiar than others.Ever use...
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