Relative Retail Price Index Activity

This is an ICT activity in mathematics education is designed for use with MS Excel®. It includes step - by - step instructions on how to complete the activity, the MS Excel® file, and solutions. The instructions and solutions are included in one pdf file.

This activity can be used as part of an introduction to spreadsheets linked with mathematics education. There are only three formulae used:

• price x weight
• total
• price index

It also teaches relative and absolute referencing in an easy to understand way.

Retail Price Index is calculated by giving each item in the index a weight, (a number according to the importance of the item), multiplying price by weight and summing the products. A base year is established and the Relative Retail Price Index for each subsequent year is found by dividing by the base year total.

It is then easy to compare price inflation year by year.

Ten grocery items are chosen for this simple Retail Price Index activity and calculations are made for six years, from 2000 (base year) through to 2005.

The indices are compared by creating a column (bar) chart.

Download

Activity instructions (pdf - 635kb)

MS Excel® worksheet (20kb)

CSV worksheet (2kb - if you do not have a spreadsheet application that can open MS Excel® files)

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