ECO 250.04 & 05 Fall 2014
Important!
Additional information required for this class is on Blackboard under “Course Information.”
Success in this course requires that you review that material as soon as possible.
Overview
In this course you will get a solid introduction to statistical analysis, and you will learn how
to use Excel to do statistical analysis.
Statistical analysis is becoming increasingly important in all areas of business, especially
marketing, finance, operations, management, and economics. Employees at all levels must
able to understand statistical concepts to make good decisions and to explain their positions
to others. They must also be able to understand statistical concepts to judge the strength of
arguments made by others. The ability to do statistical analysis is a strong plus in the job
market.
Excel has become a standard tool used for many purposes throughout business. Nearly every
employee of any business will be provided Excel by his or her employer and will be
expected to be able to use it. Those who have mastered some of Excel’s advanced
capabilities will have an advantage on the job and in the job market.
Required Materials
1. Learning Business Statistics with Microsoft Excel 2010 (& Excel 2013), Fall 2014
Edition. Older versions of this text (up to one year) can be used. Available at the
UNCG bookstore
2. ResponseWare license. Available online or at the bookstore.
3. A PC with the full version of either Excel 2010 or Excel 2013. You will a lab
computer for class, but you will need a PC for work outside of class.
Item 1 is a course pack I have prepared for use as the primary text. You will need a threering binder.
Item 2 can be purchased online (preferred) or at the bookstore. See Blackboard for more
information
The lab computers in 221 Bryan will be used during class. Outside of class you will need
access to a PC running the full version of Excel 2010 or 2013, and it will need to be set up
for class use. See Blackboard for more information or if you wish to use a Mac.
Class Meeting Location
Class will meet in the computer lab in 221 Bryan.
Attendance
Class attendance is very important for success in this course.
Your grade for ResponseWare questions on days for which you have an unexcused absence
will be zero and will affect your course average.
Your ability to do well on exams will be seriously hurt if you miss class. If absence is
unavoidable, contact me so that I can advise you on making up the material.
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ECO 250 Syllabus Fall 2014
Grading
Grades are on a 10 point scale with minuses for the bottom two points and pluses for the top
two. For instance, 80–81 is a B–, 82–87 is a B, and 88–89 is a B+.
Your final base grade average will be calculated according to the following:
Exam 1
15%
Exam 2
20%
Exam 3
20%
Final Exam
29%
Homework Average
8%
In-Class (ResponseWare Questions) 8%
Total
100%
Exams
Exams will be written on paper, but Excel will be used to answer the questions. You will
have the opportunity to show your work for possible partial credit if your final answer is
wrong.
You may use the “Notes & Formula Sheet” during exams. A copy is provided in the text,
and you can download a duplicate from Blackboard. Copies will also be available during
exams if you forget to bring yours. You may write notes in margins of the formula sheet,
but, if you print it on two sheets of paper, you may not write on the blank sides. Put your
name on your Notes & Formula Sheet. You may be asked to turn it in during an exam, but it
will be returned to you.
In order to get the maximum benefit from the Notes & Formula Sheet, you should get in the
habit of using it when working homework or other problems and when in class. There is a
large amount of information on it, and unless you become familiar with it before an exam,
you will have difficulty finding the information you need during an exam.
Homework
Homework problem sets will be made available on Blackboard. For each homework, there
will be two problem sets: one for practice and the other for your homework grade.
Generally, the wording of problems in the two sets will be identical or very similar, but the
data provided will differ.
You will be able to work the practice problems as often as you wish. Each time, the data for
the problems will randomly change. All of the questions will be asked at once. A grade for
the practice problem sets will appear in Blackboard but will have no effect on your final
course grade. The practice problem sets will be available for the entire semester.
The homework problem set can only be done once, questions will be asked one at a time,
and you will not be able to go back to a previous question. There is a deadline for
completing the homework problem set, and it will disappear once that deadline passes.
Success in the course requires practice working problems. The homeworks can help prepare
you for exams, but only if you work them correctly. Do not do a practice problem set
without actually entering answers for each question. Work each practice problem set
repeatedly until you can answer each question correctly with nothing but a blank Excel
workbook and the Notes & Formula sheet that you can use during an exam.
Just doing the homework problems is likely not sufficient to prepare you for the exams. At
the end of every chapter in the text, except the first, there are also problems. The answers to
all of the problems are in Appendix C. Working these problems will give you practice with
ECO 250 Syllabus Fall 2014
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different wordings. The problems on the exams will never have wording that is completely
identical to those in the homework problems or the end-of-chapter problems. Experience
with many differently-worded problems is the best way to prepare for the exam problems.
ResponseWare
Questions will be asked in every class that you will answer on a website. This system is very
similar to “clicker” systems that you have used in other course, but no physical clicker is
required. Some questions will be extra credit.
Tutoring
The Student Success Center also offers free tutoring for students in ECO 250. Most tutors
are undergraduates who completed the course with a grade of B+ or better. I have had many
positive reports from students who took advantage of this opportunity. For more information
see http://success.uncg.edu/lac/tutoring.php. To request a tutor, fill out and submit the form
here: http://success.uncg.edu/lac/service_request.asp. You must request a tutor before
October 17, but there often is a shortage of tutors, and it is best to sign up as soon as
possible.
If you miss the deadline, or prefer a different tutor, on your request I will see if a graduate
student in economics is interested. You would have to negotiate a payment rate directly with
him or her.
Extra Credit
You have three ways to earn extra credit:
1) ResponseWare. Since some of the questions will be extra credit, your average on these
questions can exceed 100.
2) Turn in the Excel work done while working through chapters and answering end-ofchapter questions. There are two parts to this extra credit:
a. As you work through the text you will create new workbooks and/or modify existing
workbooks. Turning in these workbooks will give you extra credit.
b. Work every end-of-chapter problem, except those marked with asterisks. For some
problems a worksheet with the data for the problem may be provided. Work out the
problem and clearly show your Excel steps on the same worksheet. For other problems,
there may not be a worksheet provided. Put the Excel used to work out these problems
on separate worksheets with the problem number on the tab. If one question has several
parts, show the work for all parts on the same worksheet.
Put all of the worksheet in a single workbook. E-mail it to the graduate assistant. (Derek
Strong drstrong@uncg.edu). Put “ECO 250 Extra Credit” in your e-mail subject line.
Your work will be spot-checked. You will receive a grade of 0, 50, or 100, depending on
how much you have successfully completed. At the end of the semester, the average of all
the extra credit grades will be taken and multiplied by six. That product will be added to
your final course average. Successfully doing all of the extra credit will raise you final
average by more than half a letter grade.
3) Finding errors in the textbook. For every error that you are the first to report, you will
receive .10 or .20 points added to your final grade. In order to receive this credit, you must:
a. Send the report to me (Professor Neufeld) by e-mail (john_neufeld@uncg.edu). Put
“ECO 250 Text Errors” in your e-mail subject line.
b. Describe the error and explain why you think it is an error and what you think the
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ECO 250 Syllabus Fall 2014
correction should be.
c. Identify the page number and location of the error. The date at the bottom of the page
containing the error must be a 2014 date.
d. Be the first person to have reported the error.
Errors can be of any kind: typographic, spelling, references to the wrong cell, incorrect
values given, etc. Typographical, grammatical, spelling errors, as well as incorrect
references to illustrations, will each receive .10 points. Substantive errors (instructions that
refer to the wrong cells or provide values that are wrong will each receive .20 points. The
values seen in Excel are rounded, and the number of decimal places displayed can change. A
value in the text will be considered an error only if it differs from the value shown by Excel
rounded to the same number of decimal places as that in the text.
Error reports will be collected and periodically reviewed by me. I will acknowledge
receiving your report, but will not check it immediately. After reviewing your error reports, I
will send you an e-mail indicating whether or not you will get the extra credit. The only
circumstances where you wouldn’t receive the extra credit are if I do not agree that what you
have reported is an error, or if someone else previously reported the same error. You will
receive a notification for each error you submit.
Instructors
Office
E-mail address
Professor
Dr. John Neufeld 449 Bryan john_neufeld@uncg.edu
Assistant
Mr. Derek Strong 444 Bryan drstrong@uncg.edu
Office Hours
See Blackboard under
“Contact Instructors.”
When sending e-mail to either of us, include “ECO 250” in the subject line. This will ensure
your message doesn’t get lost in the daily flood of e-mails.
Course Schedule
The course schedule is available on Blackboard. It will be updated to reflect any changes in
the schedule that might happen during the semester.
New Drop Policy
Please be aware that UNC General Administration has mandated a new policy on course
drops that applies to this course and all other courses:


Only 16 hours of courses can be dropped during a student’s entire academic career.
Courses dropped at other UNC campuses count in this limit.
If a student does not successfully complete at least 67% of the hours signed up for on the
second week of class, he or she will lose academic standing regardless of grades. That
means if you are signed up for three courses and drop one, you will lose academic
standing. The consequence is academic probation, suspension, or dismissal from the
university.
For more information about the new drop policy, see
http://studentsfirst.uncg.edu/withdrawal/course/.
Class Behavior
Classes will be informal. You are encouraged to ask questions in class anytime. Please do
not come to class late or leave early without either notifying me in advance or providing me
with an explanation afterwards.
ECO 250 Syllabus Fall 2014
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Academic Integrity Policy
Students are expected to know and abide by the Honor Code in all matters pertaining to this
course. Violations of this code will be pursued in accordance with the code. The link to
UNCG’s academic integrity policy is: http://sa.uncg.edu/dean/academic-integrity/.
Faculty and Student Guidelines
Please familiarize yourself with the Bryan School’s Faculty and Student Guidelines. The
link for this document is http://bae.uncg.edu/assets/faculty_student_guidelines.pdf.
Learning Objectives
The following is the minimal set of learning objectives that apply to all sections of ECO250:
1) Calculate common measures of location and dispersion and be able to determine the
presence and direction of skew for a set of data.
2) When given a set of business choices, each expressed as a different discrete
probability function of dollar payouts, be able to determine the expected value and
standard deviation of each choice and be able to apply the concept of risk aversion
to determine the extent to which this can help determine choice rankings.
3) Calculate probabilities of random variables from binomial, normal, and t
distributions.
4) Given a set of sample data, be able to estimate a confidence interval estimate on the
population mean.
5) Given a hypothesized population standard deviation and level of confidence, be able
to estimate the sample size required to achieve a targeted sampling error for a
confidence interval estimate of the population mean.
6) Given a set of sample data, be able to perform a hypothesis test on the population
mean.
7) Given a set of sample data, be able to make inferences about the value of a
population parameter other than the mean, such as the population proportion or
variance.
8) Explain the consequences of Type I and Type II error within the context of a
hypothesis test of a business problem and determine how the test design can be
altered to affect the likelihood of each type error.
9) Given a set of sample data, estimate and interpret the value of the estimated
coefficient on the independent variable.
10) Given the output from a simple regression, be able to determine the significance of
the relationship between the independent and dependent variables.
11) Given the output from a simple regression, be able to provide an estimated value for
the dependent variable given a value for the independent variable not present in the
original sample.