Quantitative Business Methods (Statistics 800)

The Fox School of Business and Management

Temple University, Japan

Summer, 2003

The course, to be offered over May 17, May 24, May 31, June 7, and June 14,is designed for Executive MBA Program in Tokyo.

Instructor

Jagbir Singh, Professor of Statistics

Phone: 81-3-5441-9871(Tokyo)

215-204-5069 (Philadelphia)

Fax: 81-3-5441-9822 (Tokyo)

215-205-1501 (Philadelphia)

Office Hours: 1:00pm to 4:00pm on weekdays; other hours by appointment.

Text

Practical Business Statistics, 4th Edition, McGraw-Hill / Irwin, by Andrew F. Siegel comes with a CD-ROM that contains Power Point slides for each chapter, practice quizzes, data files StatPad (a statistical software), and Excel Guide.

Teacher’s notes

Informally written notes will be posted ahead of each class at: and the Blackboard site of Temple University.

Course Objectives

Applications of statistics in business will be emphasized, not its theory. Upon completing the course, you should be able to integrate statistical analyses in your decision-making environments. Specific learning objectives are:

  • Display and summary of statistical information by charts, histograms, box-plots etc; mean, median and mode as measures of averages; standard deviation, coefficient of variation and range as measures of dispersion.
  • Basic probability concepts and display of information by probability trees. Roles of the binomial and normal probability distributions in statistics.
  • Confidence intervals for means and proportions.
  • Basic hypothesis testing tools for comparing means and proportions.
  • Regression analysis for modeling a response variable with a number of predictors.
  • Chi-squared tests for association.
  • Basic nonparametric tests.

General Policies

Manual calculations will be minimal. Instead, StatPad, an Excel based computing software, on the CD-Rom with the text will be our tool for statistical computing. But, you may wish to use any another tool of your liking for computations.

  • I will be punctual and have a plan for each session to ensure a collaborative and congenial learning environment.
  • Remain current even if you miss a session or part of it.
  • No make ups will be considered for missed assignments.
  • Completed assignments may be submitted electronically on or before the due date.
  • Incomplete grade will be assigned only if necessitated by an emergency.
  • Class participation is expected and encouraged.
  • Every week a case will be assigned for its analysis.
  • The grades will be submitted promptly after the course is complete.

Grading (subject to modification)

Quizzes, class participation = 25%

One hour-long in-class test = 25%

Statistical analysis of cases = 50 %

Weekly Schedule

Summer 2003

Date

(2003) /

Topics

May 17 / General information; StatPad for Statistical computing;
Classification of Data Sets; Histograms: Chapters 1, 2, 3
Measures of Location and Variability: Chapters 4 and 5
May 24 / Basic Probability Concepts: Chapter 6
Random Variables and Probability Distributions: Chapter 7
May 31 / Random Sampling and Distribution of the Sample Mean: Chapter 8
Confidence Intervals for Estimation: Chapter 9
Hypothesis Testing: Chapter 10
June 7 / Simple Linear Regression: Chapter 11
Multiple Linear Regression: Chapters 12
Time Series: Chapter 14
June 14 / Analysis of Variance: Chapter 15
Nonparametric Methods: Chapter 16
Chi-Squared Tests: Chapter 17
Quality Control Charts: Chapter 18
AssignmentsPrior to First Session
  • Practice importing data files from the Student CD-ROM into Microsoft Excel
  • Practice basics operations of Excel Spreadsheet
  • Know your teacher:
  • Chapter 1 (Defining the Role of Statistics in Business), and Chapter 2 (Classifying the Various Types of Data Sets)

Session 1 and Assignments

  • StatPad and an add-in tool in Excel for statistical analyses
  • Blackboard as a resource (
  • Graphs and Charts: histograms, bar charts, box plots etc. (Chapter 3, and notes on the Blackboard)
  • Averages (Mean median and mode) and measures of dispersion: standard deviation, coefficient of variation, range etc. (Chapters 4 and 5, and notes on the Blackboard)

Chapter 3

Questions:8, 13, 14, 15 on page 65

Problems: 6/67, 9/68, 17/71; database:2/75

Chapter 4

Questions: 12, 14, 17 on page 109

Problems: 1/109, 6/109, 14/113; database: 1/117

Chapter 5

Questions: 6, 8, 9 on page 147

Problems: 1/147, 6/150; database1/157

Cases

Let's Control Waste in Production, page 76

Managerial Projections, page 118

Should We Keep or Get Rid of This Supplier? On page 158

Session 2 and Assignments

  • Interpretations of probability of an event
  • Marginal and conditional probabilities
  • Construction of probability trees
  • Random variables and probability distributions
  • The normal and binomial distributions

Read notes on the Blackboard: Basic Probability Concepts; Random Variables and sampling Distributions, and Chapters 6 and 7

Chapter 6

Questions: 12 and 13 on page 199

Problems: 1/199, 5/200, 6/200, 10/201; database 1/205

Chapter 7

Questions: 5 on page 244, 7 on page 245

Problems: 1/245, 14/248, 24/249; database 1/251

Cases

Whodunit? Who, if……..? , Page 206

The Option Value of an Oil Lease, page 252

Session 3 and Assignments

  • Random sampling and the sampling error
  • Standard error of the mean
  • Confidence intervals
  • Hypothesis testing for means and proportions
  • P-value in significance testing

Read notes on Blackboard: Estimation and Testing of Hypotheses, and Chapters 8, 9 and 10

Chapter 8

Questions: 8 and 9 on page 288

Problems: 1/289, 5/290, 8/290, 18/291, 22/292, 30/294; database 2/296

Chapter 9

Questions: 8 and 12 on page 328

Problems: 1/329, 5/329, 25/332, and 26/333

Chapter 10

Questions: 9, 14, 15 on page 380

Problems: 7/381, 19/383, 34/388, 37/389; database 1/392

Project 3, page 337

Cases

Promising Results from a Specialty Catalog Survey, page 337

So many Ads, So Little Time, page 393

Session 4 and Assignments

  • Regression model for estimating relationships between a response and predictor variables
  • Testing the significance of predictor variables; coefficient of determination and coefficient of correlation
  • Confidence and prediction intervals for the mean and individual responses for specified predictor levels
  • Multiple linear regression model for estimating relationships between a response and more than one predictor variables

Read notes on Blackboard: Simple and multiple linear regressions, Chapters 11, 12, and 14

Assignments

Chapter 11

Questions: 8, 9, 10 on page 450

Problems: 1/451, 13/456; database 2/464

Chapter 12

Questions: 7, 8, 9 on page

Problems: 1/530, 5/530

Chapter 14

Questions: 3, 4, 5 on page 600

Problems: 5/601, 8/603

Cases

Just One More Production Step: Is it Worthwhile? Page 466

Controlling Quality of Production, page 542

Session 5 and Assignments

  • Analysis of variance models for analyzing sources of variation
  • One way and Two way analysis of variance models
  • Need for nonparametric methods
  • Sign test and rank-sum test
  • Testing population percentages with known reference values
  • Testing of association among qualitative variables

Read notes on Blackboard: Analysis of Variance (ANOVA); nonparametric methods; Chi-squared Tests, Chapters 15, 16 and 17

Chapter 15

Questions: 1, 2 on page 636

Problems: 1/637, 4/637, 19/641; database 1/642

Chapter16

Questions: 6, 7, 8 on page 661

Problems: 2/662, 6/663, 10/665; database 1/666

Chapter 17

Questions: 7, 8, 9 on page 685

Problems: 2/686, 6/687; database 2/691