Required Course for MPM students Prerequisites: None With the advent of widespread use of personal computers, managers are increasingly being called upon to interpret and perform statistical analyses. The purpose of this introductory course is to make the tools of data analysis accessible to individuals in management and (non-statistical) management support positions. The course is divided into three distinct components: descriptive statistics, (weeks 1 and 2), fundamentals of statistical inference, (weeks 3-8) and regression analysis (weeks 9-14). The emphasis of the classes on descriptive statistics is the calculation and interpretation of summary statistical measures for describing raw data. The sessions on fundamentals of statistical inference are designed to provide you with the background for executing and interpreting hypothesis tests and confidence intervals in order to evaluate the reliability of sample estimates. The latter half of the course focuses on regression analysis, a widely used statistical method. At this juncture in the course we will begin to make regular use of Excel. Objectives: Provide managers with the ability to: 1.use statistical analysis capabilities of p.c.-based Excel computer software; 2.summarize raw data and identify and interpret patterns in those data; 3.make and interpret elementary statistical inferences; (included here are the capabilities to compute and interpret confidence intervals and hypotheses tests); 4.execute and interpret rudimentary regression analyses; 5.recognize limitations of statistical analyses and identify pitfalls in their interpretation.
