(With Apologies to Dr. Strangelove)
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It is a course designed for graduate students
in business who have not taken any statistics
courses as undergraduates or in any previous
graduate program.
I am working with many students who have
never envisioned studying the discipline until
they entered an MBA program.
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It is a course that is designed to teach
students the introductory concepts contained
in an undergraduate business core course or
courses in statistics.
Soup to nuts, so to speak!
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I try to teach in one course the equivalent of
two undergraduate introductory statistics
courses.
I try to expose students to the basic concepts
of both descriptive and inferential statistics
as well as to regression analysis.
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The challenges addressed in this meeting
dealt with the necessity of identifying topics
that could be eliminated or deemphasized
without sacrificing quality.
Why do this?
In my case the issue is time, or the lack
thereof.
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Maybe nothing?
Maybe something?
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I work no problems by hand, and I do not require
students to do so either.
The textbook is used only for reference.
I prepare my own set of problems as examples.
The students can download this set of problems
from the electronic course reserves of the
university library.
I use MegaStat and require all students to do the
same as they learn how to perform basic
statistical analyses.
We both generate and interpret statistical outputs
using MegaStat.
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I give take home rather than in-class tests.
I give in-class quizzes in order to preserve the
integrity of the grading process.
I give no homework, because I expect students to
spend their time reviewing the past week’s
material in order to prepare for the in-class
quizzes.
Class time consists of lecture, question and
answer, and software demonstrations of
techniques leading to the answers of selected
problems.
Implications to business professionals of the
results of the work are stressed.
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I focus on statistical inference and regression
analysis in this course.
I cover the basics of descriptive statistics to the
extent necessary in order for students to be able
to understand statistical inference.
I do not stress pictorial analysis of data sets.
I spend a small amount of time covering
probability, probability distributions and
sampling distributions in order to highlight some
of the basic theory in these areas so as to lay the
foundation for the study of statistical inference.
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Only as needed!
Evaluation of the knowledge of the statistical
theory is minimal.
On a few of the in-class quizzes, some theory
may be tested.
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Obviously, I think so, or I wouldn’t use it!
I believe that upon the completion of the
course, students will have acquired the
knowledge necessary to understand the role
of statistics and utilize its concepts in the
business world.
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Will I continue to teach the course in its
traditional lecture format?
Will I be asked to develop and teach an on
line version of the course?
If the latter comes to pass, will it be a
different version of the course than what I am
currently delivering?
Beats me, stay tuned!