An Essential Guide to Business Statistics

In a business context, we frequently collect information with a variety of different objectives in mind. However, business–related information, also referred to as data, has no practical use unless it can be properly processed and understood. We need statistics to help us achieve this understanding: statistics is a mathematical science that involves the collection, analysis, interpretation and presentation of data.

An Essential Guide to Business Statistics offers a clear and concise introduction for business students studying statistics for the first time. It will help them to become proficient in using statistical techniques and interpreting their results within a business context and will enable them to have a better understanding of customers, decision making and planning for the future.

Designed to be engaging and accessible, An Essential Guide to Business Statistics features:

Easy to follow writing style makes the content comprehensible to all students, including those who do not consider numeracy as their strongest skill. Numerous examples to help students understand and apply their knowledge to business– based scenarios. Rich and comprehensive suite of practice exercises which enables the student to rigorously test their understanding of a topic; a full worked solution is also provided for each exercise. Hints and tips sections to help students avoid common mistakes. Screen shots and associated instructions are provided to explain how to use MS Excel to carry out many of the statistical techniques.

This book is an ideal resource for undergraduate business students taking introductory modules in business statistics or quantitative methods. Accompanying the text is a rich supporting website providing additional teaching and learning materials, including slides for each chapter, tutorials in Excel, self–test quizzes and student practice projects at varying difficulty levels.

Preface

About the Author

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Data Collection

Chapter 3 Data Distributions

Chapter 4 Graphical Representation

Chapter 5 Measures of Central Tendency

Chapter 6 Measures of Dispersion

Chapter 7 Correlation

Chapter 8 Simple Linear Regression

Chapter 9 Probability

Chapter 10 Introducing Statistical Inference

Glossary

Index

Dawn Willoughby is an award–winning writer and lecturer in statistics at the University of Reading, where she teaches students on a wide range of undergraduate programmes in areas including business management, statistics, mathematics, psychology, information systems and computer science. She is a qualified mathematics teacher with a degree in Statistics and Computer Science, and has achieved professional recognition as a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and is currently working on a Master s degree in Education.