Introducing Minitab

Minitab is a general-purpose statistical software used by business and academic researches mainly in the fields of business and quality control. It is often used in the conjunction with Six Sigma, which is a project-oriented quality control system and other statistical-based process improvement methods. The latest version of Minitab is version 15.1.0.0 and will be the version discussed in this report using Windows XP operating system. Minitab supports both pull-down interface and command-line interface. While pull-down interface provides clickable options through menus and dialog boxes, command lines allow you to provide specific instructions, through a command language. To enable command line input, 1) click Editor in menu 2) select Enable Commands one important thing worth noting while using command lines method is to always type in end at the end of codes for them to be read and run. The Minitab environment consists of two windows by default, which are session and data windows. Session window where command lines are entered. Also displays result of analysis and log Data window where data is showed, edited and entered

Below is a screenshot of Minitab 15.

Session Window

Data Window

Loading dataset in Minitab

Minitab is compatible with many data type files such as .csv, .txt, .dat files. If a data ever needs modification in order to be read properly by Minitab, this can be done pretty conveniently in the data window. To load a data file into Minitab, one can: 1) click File in menu 2) select Open Worksheet and choose the data file or type in Wopen [File URL] in the command window, however this method requires different options such as delimiter to be stated depending on the file type.

Linear regression in Minitab

To start a regression analysis, one can: 1) click Stat in menu 2) select Regression or type in regress [dependant var] [number of explanatory var] [explanatory var]; in the command window. Here is one example of the output generated:

When using the pull-down interface, a regression window will pop out and provides different data manipulation options. Advanced analysis method such as weighted model can be selected and options to information such as VIF, PRESS statistics can be modified here. As seen in the output, the default result shown in Minitab provides p-value and F or t statistics in for both the model and variables. For hypothesis testing, different options can be selected by selecting Stat in menu bar, then Basic Stiatistics and can be looked up in Minitab help file so will not be discussed in this report. To specify interaction, * is used in Minitab. Also if the variables are nested, the user needs to specify this in the command line using parentheses. For example, interaction between a and b nested in c, treating price as the dependant variable, then the coding should be: GLM price =c(a*b);

Non-Linear Regression and Data Manipulation in Minitab

To run a non-linear regression in Minitab, the manipulation of data is needed. As mentioned above, one of the most user-friendly functions in Minitab its ability to let the users manipulate the data at the dataset level. To create a new variable in order to carry out non-linear regression, the user can just click the assign formula button which can be found on the standard toolbar, which is a button with a fx sign. Then, regression can be run with the methods mentioned above (refer to linear regression in Minitab). Ways to define functions can be further looked up in the Help file and will not be discussed here due to page limitation. To transpose a column, the user can: 1) Select Data in menu bar 2) Select Transpose Columns and save the transposed columns into rows with different variable names.

ANOVA (Factor) Analysis in Minitab

To run an AVOVA analysis, the first step is usually to check the interaction plot. This can be done by: 1) Select Stat in menu bar 2) Select ANOVA and then the user can generate interaction or main effect plot by choosing different options accordingly. Here is one example of the plot generated. The plot area, color, legend etc. can be easily changed by using different pull-down options which is very convenient. Also each plot is

shown in a different window so the users are not required to plot all the graphs in one window or divide the window like they have to do in other software such as SAS.
Main Effects Plot for player
Data Means group 114
114

Interaction Plot for player

Data Means

test

116

112 110
Mean

112 110 108 106 104 102

test 1 2 3 4 5

108 106 104 102 0 1 3 1 2 3 4 5

Mean

1 group

Residual Analysis in Minitab

To carry out residual analysis in Minitab environment, after opening up regression or ANOVA window (refer to Linear regression or ANOVA (factor) section), the user can just simply click the Graphs button and check the checkboxes accordingly. Foll owing is an example of histogram and qqplot for residual. Similar to main effect and interaction plots, different properties of the graphs can be changed using pull-down options, too.
Histogram

(response is VisCom) 20
99

Normal Probability Plot

(response is VisCom)

95

15
Frequency

90 80

Percent

70 60 50 40 30 20

10

10 5

-15

-10

-5

0 5 Residual

10

15

20

-20

-10

0 Residual

10

20

Random effect model in Minitab

To run a random effect analysis in Minitab, the user can: 1) Select Stat in menu bar 2) Select Balanced ANOVA or General Linear Model

similar windows will pop out after step 2 and one thing to note when entering in the random effect is to make sure the random effect is also included in the model textbox or an error message will be produced. To choose whether Type I or Type III error to be computed, the options button in regression or ANOVA window has to be used. However, when it comes to dealing with random effect, Minitab automatically calculates the F value of individual variables using MSE as the denominator, where it is usually not the right way to compute the F values. Therefore, the user has to check the SS components of different variables in order to calculate the right F value. Provided below is an example of the random effect analysis output:
Factor Test_ Player Type fixed random Levels 5 11 Values 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 100, 102, 103, 105, 107, 112, 115, 118, 120, 121, 122

Analysis of Variance for VisCom, using Adjusted SS for Tests Source Test_ Player Error Total DF 4 10 22 36 Seq SS 239.1 758.5 2592.1 3589.7 Adj SS 287.3 758.5 2592.1 Adj MS 71.8 75.9 117.8 F 0.61 0.64 P 0.660 0.761

S = 10.8546

R-Sq = 27.79%

R-Sq(adj) = 0.00%

Also, to carry out a Chi-squared test in Minitab, 1) Select Stat in menu bar 2) Select Tables 3) Select Chi-Square Goodness-of-Fit Test and enter the variables accordingly.

Minitab help
Due to page limitation, many options of Minitab will not be discussed in this report and can be referred in Minitab help file. To access Minitab help file, simply click help in menu bar or type in help in command window.