Essential Guide to Business Statistics

Dawn Willoughby is an award-winning writer and lecturer in statistics at the University of Reading, where she teaches students on a wide range of undergraduate programmes in areas including Business Management, Statistics, Mathematics, Psychology, Information Systems and Computer Science. She is a qualified mathematics teacher with a degree in Statistics and Computer Science and is currently working towards a Master's degree in Education. Dawn has also achieved professional recognition as a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

• Preface ixAbout the Author xiChapter 1 Introduction 1Collection 1Analysis 2Interpretation 2Presentation 2Terminology 2Using Excel 3Chapter 2 Data Collection 13Introduction 13Terminology 14Primary and Secondary Data 15Sampling Methods 15Data Collection Techniques 23Understanding Bias 28Hints and Tips 28Practice Exercises 29Solutions to Practice Exercises 35Chapter 3 Data Distributions 43Introduction 43Frequency Distributions 44Relative Frequency 47Cumulative Frequency 48Cumulative Relative Frequency 49Grouped Frequency Distributions 50Numerical Class Characteristics 54Which Distribution? 57Hints and Tips 58Practice Exercises 59Solutions to Practice Exercises 71Chapter 4 Graphical Representation 85Introduction 85Bar Charts 86Pie Charts 88Stem and Leaf Diagrams 90Histograms 93Time Series Plots 95Scatter Diagrams 97Hints and Tips 98Using Excel 100Practice Exercises 104Solutions to Practice Exercises 116Chapter 5 Measures of Central Tendency 125Introduction 125The Mode 126The Mean 127The Median 131Advantages and Disadvantages 134Which Measure? 135Hints and Tips 136Using Excel 137Practice Exercises 143Solutions to Practice Exercises 156Chapter 6 Measures of Dispersion 163Introduction 163Range 164Quartiles and the Interquartile Range 165Five-Number Summary 167Box Plots 168Variance and Standard Deviation 172Coefficient of Variation 178Hints and Tips 180Using Excel 181Practice Exercises 184Solutions to Practice Exercises 196Chapter 7 Correlation 203Introduction 203Scatter Diagrams 204Correlation Coefficient 205Rank Correlation Coefficient 211Cause and Effect 212Hints and Tips 213Using Excel 213Practice Exercises 215Solutions to Practice Exercises 228Chapter 8 Simple Linear Regression 245Introduction 245Independent and Dependent Variables 246Linear Equations 246Simple Linear Regression Model 248Finding the Line of Best Fit 249Making Predictions 252Interpolation and Extrapolation 253Interpretation 253Hints and Tips 254Using Excel 256Practice Exercises 257Solutions to Practice Exercises 267Chapter 9 Probability 279Introduction 280Terminology 280Approaches to Probability 281Basic Properties 284Probability Model 285Venn Diagrams 286Mutually Exclusive Events 287Independent Events 287Complement Rule 288Intersection and Union 289Addition Rule 290Conditional Probability 292Multiplication Rule 293Hints and Tips 294Practice Exercises 296Solutions to Practice Exercises 303Chapter 10 Introducing Statistical Inference 309Introduction 309Random Variables 310Discrete and Continuous Random Variables 310Probability Distributions 311Normal Distribution 313The Standard Normal Distribution 315Population Parameters and Sample Statistics 321Point and Interval Estimates 323Hints and Tips 326Practice Exercises 327Solutions to Practice Exercises 333Appendix: The Standard Normal Distribution 341Glossary 345Index 351