Magic is not always great. Especially in the learning process, it’s not a good thing if finished results just pop out of a tool - like magic!

We’re big fans of keeping calculations transparent and indeed, a whole section of DataClassroom, our Interactive Analyses, is dedicated to exposing the mathematical processes that lurk behind statistical calculations, and illustrating them with animation and interaction.

On the other hand, once you have grasped the concepts, you might just want to use the tool to get results. Our Graph-Driven Test (GDT) feature is designed to do just that - to take a visualization you’ve made, and perform the work of selecting an appropriate hypothesis test, applying the data, and presenting the results.

But was it too much .. like magic?

GDT presents you with a list of potential tests, what the conditions would be for selecting that test, and which one it has selected, in a table like this:

Which is all very well. But there’s that big green button, tempting you to click it, and to skip reading the table!

In a feedback session, we heard from a few users that they felt they hadn’t actually learned anything - they felt that DataClassroom had done all the work, and they just pressed the button. Clearly, not quite what we are looking to achieve.

Or had they?

A slight digression: although it might not have seemed like it, one could argue that they had in fact done all the work required. They had chosen their variables to observe. They had correctly indicated the types of those variables, and they had set up a visualization showing those variables against each other in such a way as to show the potential relationship they wanted to test for.

There is actually quite a lot of work - and understanding - in doing that.

All DataClassroom had done was to select a test from a table.

Repetition, repetition…

“Well OK”, we thought. It can’t hurt to add a step to the process where we underline what is happening in the selection process, and in that process also have the opportunity to give a bit more background on the selected test.

That’s another learning opportunity, right there for the taking. Some say repetition is key to learning!

So now, when you click Calculate, you don’t go straight to the results, but you get to see an illustrated description of the test and a brief explanation of why it was selected.

Don’t panic: For the experts out there who are now thinking “Aargh, not another button click” we have of course added a “don’t show this again” option.

You can take a look at when you next fire it up, and see what you think. Hopefully, you feel good about having done all that analytical thinking that our tool took advantage of!

In the meantime, you can also check out the User Guide section on GDT for more about what it can do.

Any if you yourself have any comments or feedback to DataClassroom, feel free to drop us an email.