COMPENSTAT, a menu-driven statistical program for IBM-compatible microcomputers, has two distinct versions: instructional and computational. The instructional version can be used by instructors as a classroom resource, and the computational version is used directly by students to calculate answers to problems. The software package is primarily used as an assignment generating and problem solving tool. Each student in a class is assigned unique data for a problem type. Since all data sets generate different answers, students can help each other learn but cannot simply copy answers. The instructor is not burdened with extra work, since each student's assignment is followed by a personalized answer key on which the student's answer is computed. An answer sheet is even provided to organize students' responses for easy checking. This paper provides instructions for using the menu-driven features of COMPENSTAT in a business statistics course including diagrams of the menu options, which facilitate building, viewing, or modifying data sets; generating individualized assignments for students in a class; and performing statistical calculations (e.g., frequency distributions, descriptive statistics, probability distributions, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, chi-square and ANOVA, index numbers, regression and correlation, and nonparametric statistics). Examples of a COMPENSTAT answer sheet and statistical problems on regression, correlation, and ANOVA are also provided. (GL)
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