Excel Instructions: Linear Regression

To open Excel with the data in the worksheet, click here and it will automatically download the file to your computer. Find the downloaded file (usually in the Downloads folder) and double-click it to open it in Excel.

Our dataset contains the following variables:

Year: the year of the Olympic Games, from 1896 to 2000.

Time: the winning time for the 1,500 meter race, in seconds.

First, let's explore the relationship between the two quantitative variables—year and time. Produce a scatterplot and use it to verify that year and time are nearly linear in their relationship.

Here's a reminder of how to do this in Excel: