Teaching Decision Tree Classification Using Microsoft Excel
Kaan Ataman
Argyros School of Business and Economics, Chapman University, Orange, California 92866, ataman@chapman.edu
George Kulick, Thaddeus Sim
Le Moyne College, Syracuse, New York 13214, kulick@lemoyne.edu, simtk@lemoyne.edu
Abstract
Data mining is concerned with the extraction of useful patterns from data. With the collection, storage, and processing of data becoming easier and more affordable by the day, decision makers increasingly view data mining as an essential analytical tool. Unfortunately, data mining does not get as much attention in the OR/MS curriculum as other more popular areas such as linear programming and decision theory. In this paper, we discuss our experiences in teaching a popular data mining method (decision tree classification) in an undergraduate management science course, and we outline a procedure to implement the decision tree algorithm in Microsoft Excel.
Key words
data mining; decision tree classifier; spreadsheet modeling
History
Received: January 2010; accepted: August 2010
Download PDF
Citation Information
Ataman, K., G. Kulick, T. Sim. 2011. Teaching decision tree classification using Microsoft Excel. INFORMS Trans. Ed. 11(3) 123-131. Available online at http://ite.pubs.informs.org/.