Mark L. Berenson
Department of Management and Information Systems
School of Business, Montclair State University
David M. Levine
Department of Statistics and Computer Information Systems
Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, City University of New York
Timothy C. Krehbiel
Department of Management
Richard T. Farmer School of Business, Miami University

Preface


Educational Philosophy


Seeking ways to continuously improve the teaching of business statistics is the core value that guides our works. We actively participate in Decision Sciences Institute (DSI), American Statistical Association (ASA), and Making Statistics More Effective in Schools and Business (MSMESB) conferences. We use the Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction (GAISE) reports as well as our reflections on teaching business statistics to a diverse student body at several large universities.

These experiences have helped us identify the following key principles:

1. Show students the relevance of statistics   Students need a frame of reference when learning statistics, especially when statistics is not their major. That frame of reference for business students should be the functional areas of business, such as accounting, finance, information systems, management, and marketing. Each statistics topic needs to be presented in an
applied context related to at least one of these functional areas. The focus in teaching each topic should be on its application in business, the interpretation of results, the evaluation of the assumptions, and the discussion of what should be done if the assumptions are violated.

2. Familiarize students with the statistical applications used in the business world   Integrating these programs into all aspects of an introductory statistics course allows thecourse to focus on interpretation of results instead of computations. Introductory businessstatistics courses should recognize that programs with statistical functions are commonly found on a business decision maker’s desktop computer, therefore making the interpretation of results more important than the tedious hand calculations required to produce them.

3. Provide clear instructions to students for using statistical applications   Books should explain clearly how to use programs such as Excel and Minitab with the study of statistics, without having those instructions dominate the book or distract from the learning of statistical concepts.

4. Give students ample practice in understanding how to apply statistics to business   Both classroom examples and homework exercises should involve actual or realistic data as much as possible. Students should work with data sets, both small and large, and be encouraged to look beyond the statistical analysis of data to the interpretation of results in a managerial context.