MANAGEMENT STATISTICS

MGMT 584

TERM II (28 Oct – 18 Dec 2002)

M & W, 18:45 to 21:30 p.m

Kapaun Air Base, Building 2784

Instructor: Dr. David E. McNabb

Email: mcnabbde@aol.com

Consultation: Before and after class, by appointment.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Management 584 is an intensive introduction to statistical methods and techniques used by managers in private and public organizations. Emphasis is placed upon the application of inferential statistics to decision situations. Topics include: measures of location and variation, probability, estimation, hypothesis tests, Analysis of Variance, correlation and regression analysis, and related topics.

REQUIRED TEXTBOOK

Anderson, D. R., Sweeney, D.J. and Williams, T.J. 2002. Statistics for Business and Economics. 8th ed. Mason, OH: South-West Publishing Co.

SPECIAL NEEDS ACCOMMODATION

If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability; if you have emergency medial information to share with the instructor; or if you require other special arrangements, please make an appointment with the instructor as soon as possible. If you have questions concerning the special needs services available at UMUC classroom facilities, please contact your UMUC location manager as soon as possible.

COURSE STRUCTURE AND OBJECTIVES

This is not a replication of the undergraduate quantitative methods course. Rather, it is designed to assist managers and would-be managers learn ways to use statistical tools to 1) reduce risk and uncertainty in decision making, 2) make population inferences with sample data, and 3) enhance management communications.

A key objective for the course is to help students become proficient with the use the statistical functions included in a readily-available software program. Microsoft’s Excel now contains many but not all of the inferential statistical tests used by today’s organizational managers. If time and software permits, students will also be introduced to additional statistical software programs such as SPSS for Windows. While we will examine and discuss scientific statistical notation and formulae in preparing to use these tools, students will be evaluated only on their skill development, not their ability to memorize formulas.

A comprehensive, scientific statistical textbook is required. Lecture topics and concepts follow much of this text, but not all. It is anticipated that students will treat this book as a reference work, referring to it regularly in their future careers. Lecture material will come from other practically oriented works, such as Statistics for Those Who (Think They) Hate Statistics, and Learning Statistics with Excel. Students are not required to purchase these additional texts. Additional lecture material will come from the instructor’ book, Research Methods (published in 2002). All material on SPSS will come from guidebooks published by SPSS (the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, Chicago).

A second key objective for this course is to eliminate the stress and trepidation, which too many students bring to the study of statistics. It bears repeating at this juncture that this is not a course is statistics for scientists or mathematicians. It is practical in nature. It was developed to help management and information technology students learn how they can apply statistics as another management communication tool.

EVALUATIONS

Evaluations will consist of three examinations. These will include definitions, applications, applications problems, and the like. If possible, examinations will include some computer-assisted problem solving. Each examination will cover only the material covered; examinations will not go back over material upon which students have already been evaluated. Homework will be assigned from the text.

Distribution of points are:

Examinations (3 @ 250 points each) 750 points

Homework Assignments 250 “

TOTAL POINTS POSSIBLE 1,000 points

ALL HOMEWORK MUST BE HANDED IN ON THE DAY ASSIGNED (TDY OR DEPLOYMENT ARE THE ONLY APPROVE JUSTIFICATIONS FOR LATE COMPLETION OF ASSIGNMENT).

GRADES

Typically, letter grades are determined from the following scale:

A 90-100% of total points possible

B 80-89% of total points possible

C 70-79% of total points possible

F Less than 70% of total points

OUTLINE AND READING SCHEDULE

DAY	DATE	TOPIC	READING
1	Oct.28	Data and Statistics Using Excel for Statistics	Chapter 1 Handout
2	Oct.30	Communicating with Tables, Charts and graphs; summarizing data	Chapter 2
3	Nov. 4	Measurements of Location and Dispersion	Chapter 3
4	Nov. 6	Introduction to Probability	Chapter 4
5	Nov.11	Probability Distributions	Chapter 5-6
6	Nov.13	Examination 1: Chapters 1-6 Sampling Concepts	Chapter 7
7	Nov.18	Hypothesis Testing	Chapter 9
8	Nov.20	Statistical Inference About Means	Chapter 10
9	Nov.25	Tests of Goodness-of- Fit and and Chi-square Test for Independence	Chapter 12
10	Nov.27	Analysis of Variance	Chapter 13
11	Dec. 2	Examination 2: Chapters 7, 9, 10, 12, 13
12	Dec. 4	Simple Linear Regression	Chapter 14
13	Dec. 9	Multiple Regression	Chapter 15
14	Dec.10	Index Numbers	Chapter 17
15	Dec.16	Non-parametric Methods	Chapter 19
16	Dec.18	Examination 3: Chapters 14, 15, 17, 19