Leader: Dr Phillip Edwards, Dr Neil Diamond

Offered

Clayton First semester 2008 (Day)
Clayton Second semester 2008 (Day)

Synopsis

An introduction to the main techniques of descriptive statistics - the collection, organisation, presentation and analysis of grouped and ungrouped data using measures of location and dispersion; the construction of index numbers, with application to share price indices and the CPI; analysis of relationships between variables using simple regression, with applications to forecasting; main ideas of probability theory as a foundation for statistical inference; concept of sampling as a way of capturing uncertainty about data; estimators and their properties; constructing and interpreting confidence intervals, testing a hypothesis.

Objectives

The learning objectives of this unit are to:

• interpret business and economic data using descriptive statistics techniques;
• construct and interpret index numbers;
• describe the concept of a sampling distribution, estimators and their properties;
• use p-values to make inference on single population means for business and economic decision-making;
• interpret and evaluate relationships between variables for business and economic decision-making using simple linear regression;
• apply the main ideas of probability theory, discrete and continuous probability distributions to business and economic decision-making.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 30%
Examination (2 hours): 70%

Contact hours

Two 1-hour lectures and a 1.5 hour tutorial each week

Prohibitions

ETW1102, ETX1100, STA1010