Monash University Handbook 2011 Undergraduate - Unit

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Synopsis

Students will learn to use basic statistical techniques and their applications to problems in accounting, economics, finance, management, marketing and business in general. Students should also be able to effectively communicate (written and verbal) the results of their analyses. This unit covers descriptive statistics (graphical and numerical measures) for revealing the information contained in data; probability as a tool for dealing with uncertainty and risk; probability distributions to model business behaviour; estimation and hypothesis testing techniques for business decision making; simple tools for forecasting time series. Excel is used extensively.

Objectives

The learning goals associated with this unit are to:

1. interpret business data using descriptive statistics techniques, to aid in the solution of business problems
2. apply simple concepts of probability and probability distributions to problems in business decision-making
3. describe the role of statistical inference and apply inference methods to single population means to aid in the solution of business problems
4. evaluate relationships between variables for business decision-making, using the concept of correlation and simple linear regression
5. apply time series techniques of forecasting to business and financial series and interpret the results to aid in the solution of business problems.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 60%
Examination (2 hours): 40%

Contact hours

3 hours per week

Prohibitions

BMS11, BUS1100, ETC1000, ETW1102, ETX1100, PMM2020, SCI1020