In­tro­duc­tion to Busi­ness Stat­ist­ics

Course content

• How did Netflix know that a show like "Stranger Things" would be a hit even before it was released?
• How can you read the fine print on your COVID test to understand the probability that the negative result you just received is a mistake?
• Are you more likely to get heads after flipping tails five times in a row in a fair coin toss?
• What is it said that "correlation does not imply causation"?
• Why is a sample size important in surveys and what happens if it's too small
• How do pollsters predict election outcomes, and why might they sometimes get it wrong?
• Should you buy an extended warranty for your new electronic gadget?
• How can statistics be manipulated to mislead or confuse the public?

This is an applied introductory statistics course designed to help you understand and answer the above questions. We begin with the essential concepts that are necessary for understanding data analysis and that fall within the realm of descriptive statistics. We will learn the basics of the software package STATA so that we can create descriptive statistics from real data. Do you have data you are interested in better understanding? Bring it! 

Next, we study probability, probability distributions, and sampling distributions so that we can dive into the world of inferential statistics where we will learn ways to make decisions based on sample data. We will learn about confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, and correlation, and will introduce linear regression analysis. We will be implementing these concepts of data analysis using the software package STATA.