Simple linear regression can be used to understand the strength and direction of the relationship between two variables, and it can also be used to make predictions about the response variable based on a predictor variable.įor clarity's sake, let's put it in Excel terms: Imagine that you have two columns of data, and you want to try to figure out how one column is related to the other. Simple linear regression (what we'll be looking at here) involves only one predictor variable. Regression is a method for estimating the relationship between an outcome variable (y) and one or more predictor variables (x). I'll try to make this explanation of simple linear regression as 'simple' as possible (see what I did there?) What is simple linear regression, and what is it used for? If you're not a math whiz or a data person, read on: there might be many times you could use this feature in Excel to help you make predictions.

There are at least three ways to do simple linear regression in Excel I'll cover the easiest and most intuitive one in this article. Excel may seem like a fairly basic tool, but it actually has some fairly advanced features for data analysis, including features that allow you to do predictive modeling like regression.

Simple linear regression equation excel