Objectives:
- Understand the importance of statistics and its applications not only to business, but to everyday life.
- Understand the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics
- Know the difference between qualitative and quantitative variables as well as the difference between discrete and continuous variables
- Understand the different levels of measurement including nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio
- Have an understanding as to the difference between mutually exclusive, independent and exhaustive
Reading For This Module:
Chapter 1 – Textbook (What is Statistics?)
Chapter 1 PowerPoints (.ppt)
Introduction:
Why should you be studying statistics? Well, the reason is that statistics is everywhere. Not just in this class, but in grocery stores, political polls and baseball games just to name a few. You cannot get away from statistics. And in many cases that should not be your objective.
Maybe you don’t care about a baseball hitter’s batting average or the statistical probability of a particular political candidate winning an election, BUT I bet you do care about the probability (likelihood) of a pizza getting delivered to your apartment in the promised 35 minutes OR the airline that you are flying for spring break getting you to Panama Beach at the designated time. All of these concepts involve statistics.
Regardless of your major (or concentration) you will need statistics. If you are in biology or chemistry, don’t you care about the probability that a particular drug will cure an illness or disease? Students of marketing want to know the probability that a new product will be accepted in the marketplace while finance/insurance majors want to know the likelihood of an insured customer having an accident.
But, it gets better. Everyone wants to know certain probabilities. Can you tell me that you would not like to know the probability that the numbers you have chosen for tonight’s lottery would be a winner. Sure you would!!!
Decision makers not only want but need statistical data on which they can base their decisions. If you have ever played sports, you know that the coaches keep very detailed records. The reason is that they need to know what kind of pitchers do best against what type of team.
For example, wouldn’t a coach need to know that the runner on first base has gotten caught stealing the last eight out of ten times (only 20% chance of the runner successfully stealing the base).
Overview of Chapter
Dr. Waller Lecture: What is Statistics? (video)
Lecture Power Point (.pptx)
Practice Quiz
Practice Quiz for this module, feel free to take multiple times