Student statistics programs for the Macintosh

This paper reviews 15 statistics programs for the Macintosh. All are intended for student use, often in conjunction with a statistics course, and are available for under $100. Of the general-purpose programs, Data Desk and StatView offer the most appealing combination of features, Macintosh interface, and student-accessible manual. Minitab is also recommended, especially in situations where some students will be using Macs and others using PCs. In addition to the analysis-only programs, two other applications present interesting combinations of statistics and other features. DataSim offers outstanding data generation and experiment simulation along with very complete, and psychology-oriented, statistical analysis. HyperStat combines an entire statistics textbook in hypertext format with a complete data analysis package. Finally, for special situations where simple statistics are all that are required, InStat is recommended because of its tutorial features and very simple interface.