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 apply them to problems in accounting, finance, management, marketing and business in general. Students should also be able to effectively communicate the results of their analyses. This unit covers descriptive statistics for revealing the information contained in data; probability as a tool for dealing with uncertainty; probability distributions to model business behaviour; confidence interval estimation and hypothesis testing techniques for single populations; analysis of relationships between variables using simple linear regression; and simple tools for forecasting time series data. Excel software will be used.

Objectives

The learning goals associated with this unit are to:

1. interpret business data using descriptive statistics techniques, including the use of Excel spreadsheet functions
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 populations
4. interpret and evaluate relationships between variables for business decision-making, using the concept of correlation and simple linear regression
5. apply suitable statistical techniques for describing and forecasting time series data.

Assessment

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

Chief examiner(s)

Hsein Kew

Contact hours

3 hours per week

Prerequisites

It is highly recommended that students have done Year 12 Mathematics (any).

Prohibitions

BMS11,BUS1100, ETC1000, ETG1102, ETW1000, ETW1102, PMM2020, SCI1020