Data Analysis and Modeling

This unit advances students’ Excel skills in preparing, summarizing, modeling, and analyzing real-world data. Students will import and transform external data, create and customize PivotTables/PivotCharts and the Data Model, perform descriptive and inferential statistical analyses, build forecasts, and apply optimization and financial functions to support data-driven decisions.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze imported and external datasets by transforming, cleaning, and preparing tables using Excel tools and Power Query to ensure accurate downstream analysis
• Apply descriptive and inferential statistical techniques—including measures of central tendency and dispersion, t-tests, z-tests, ranks, moving averages, and trend extensions—to interpret and forecast data
• Demonstrate the ability to create, customize, and extend PivotTables and PivotCharts (including calculated fields, subtotals, grouping, and Data Model sources) to summarize and visualize complex datasets
• Evaluate decision-making scenarios using Solver, scenario analysis, present value and loan-payment functions to model alternatives and recommend data-driven solutions