Using Excel to Analyze Single Case Design Data

These directions will show you how to create the graph shown in the “Using Excel to Analyze Single Case Design Data” section.

Note: These directions were written using MS Excel XP (2002). Other versions of Excel may have slightly different menu commands. Also note that in Excel terminology “graphs” are known as “charts”.

Below is the data that was used to create graph. (To conserve space, only a portion of the data is shown.)

To create the chart:

  1. Highlight the row of data that you want to use to create the graph by clicking the row heading on the left side of the window. (You may also click and drag across the cells to highlight only the cells that you want to graph.)
  1. From the “insert” menu, select the “chart” command (or click the on the toolbar). (Make sure that the row of data is still selected when you select the “chart” command.)
  1. The Chart Wizard will take you through a series of steps to create your chart. In the “Chart Wizard – Step 1 of 4 – Chart Type” dialog box, select “line” as the “chart type” and the sub-type that displays lines with data markers. Then click the “next” button.

  1. In the step 2 dialog box, select “rows” for the “series in” option. The “data range” should display the cell addresses that you had selected prior to starting the chart wizard. Click the “next” button.

  1. In the step 3 dialog box, enter the titles for the chart, the x-axis, and the y-axis.

If you want to remove the horizontal gridlines from the graph, click the “gridlines” tab. Then remove the checkmark from the “major gridlines” checkbox.

If you want to remove the legend from the graph, click the “legend” tab at the top of the dialog box. Then remove the checkmark from the “show legend” checkbox.

Click the “next” button.

  1. In the step 4 dialog box, select “as object in” as the location for the chart. (If you have manually named the current worksheet, a name other than “sheet1” will appear in the “as object in” box.) Then click the “finish” button.

  1. Resize the graph as needed by clicking and dragging the sizing handles at the corners or ends of the graph. You can move the graph around the spreadsheet by dragging. As you drag, the mouse pointer will appear as a four-headed arrow.
  1. To remove the line connecting phasesif you are using MS Excel XP 2002:
  2. You can insert an empty cell between the last value in one phase and the first value in the next phase. First, click on the spreadsheet to deactivate the graph. Click on the cell that starts the next phase. Insert an empty cell there by right-clicking and selecting “insert”.
  1. In the “insert” dialog box, select “shift cells right” and then click the OK button.
  1. Repeat these two steps as many times as necessary to separate all of the phases.
  1. To remove the line connecting phases if you are using MS Excel 2000:
  2. You can remove the line between data points. Click on the line to select the entire data series. There will be several selection handles along the line when it is selected.
  1. Click on the data point that starts the next phase. A selection handle will appear on the data point that you selected.
  1. From the “format” menu, select the “selected data point” command.
  1. In the “format data point” dialog box, select “none” for the line, and then click the OK button.

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