Statistics Teaching Questions

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Statistics Teaching Questions

David Futrell
Hi Everyone:

I'm going to be teaching a statistics course next semester for MBA Students. Most of these students are adults with actual jobs.

Since these folks are going to be managers (and not statisticians), I want to focus the course on helping them understand data and how statistics and analyses can help them solve relevant business problems. I'm hoping to use SPSS for the course (I haven't gotten a ruling from the university yet), but where I really need some advice is regarding a textbook. There are hundreds (many dozens, anyway) of business statistics textbooks and I'm going to have to pick one within the next few days. Do any of you have any recommendations for the text or any web resources for teaching a practical statistics class for MBA students?

Thanks,
David Futrell

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Re: Statistics Teaching Questions

Art Kendall
I do not have a textbook to recommend.

I strongly recommend that you make something like the following  goals of your teaching and to communicate this to the students.
" We cannot give you a graduate degree and years of experience in a single course. Major goals of this course are 1) to help you know when you should see a statistical/methodological consultant 2) provide sufficient background that you can work efficiently and effectively with statistical/methodological consultants."

For your background I suggest "statistics as principled argument"
you can find it, e.g., at http://www.amazon.com/Statistics-Principled-Argument-Robert-Abelson/dp/0805805281
It can help you decide what to emphasize in your course. Knowing why things are done in analysis is very important as it is in other processes like manufacturing.

Also, I have often had good results by having students "reference" each others' syntax.  This is a quality assurance practice from accounting and program evaluation.  This means going through the syntax and checking whether it does what it purports to do.  This helps the students internalize the importance or writing (and rewriting) syntax so that others can understand it.  The use of syntax also helps students act as a "help desk" for each other.

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants


On 11/10/2011 9:08 AM, David Futrell wrote:
Hi Everyone:

I'm going to be teaching a statistics course next semester for MBA Students. Most of these students are adults with actual jobs.

Since these folks are going to be managers (and not statisticians), I want to focus the course on helping them understand data and how statistics and analyses can help them solve relevant business problems. I'm hoping to use SPSS for the course (I haven't gotten a ruling from the university yet), but where I really need some advice is regarding a textbook. There are hundreds (many dozens, anyway) of business statistics textbooks and I'm going to have to pick one within the next few days. Do any of you have any recommendations for the text or any web resources for teaching a practical statistics class for MBA students?

Thanks,
David Futrell

===================== To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to [hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the command. To leave the list, send the command SIGNOFF SPSSX-L For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command INFO REFCARD
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants
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Re: Statistics Teaching Questions

John F Hall
In reply to this post by David Futrell

David

 

Depends how deep the statistics need to be.  Have a look at the recommended SPSS Textbooks page on my website (some titles have links to my detailed comments and/or sample pages: some are more statistical than others)

 

http://surveyresearch.weebly.com/spss-textbooks.html

 

Also the SPSS-based  course Survey Analysis Workshop.  It was originally designed for social science graduates with no previous experience of statistics or computing and used SPSS-X 4 on a Vax mainframe.  The SPSS tutorials are being converted and updated for use with SPSS for Windows. 

 

http://surveyresearch.weebly.com/summary-guide-to-spss-tutorials.html

 

They use syntax rather than drop-down menus and I haven’t got as far as the stats bits yet, but there is an extensive set of accompanying stats notes which were specially written for students from non-mathematical backgrounds.

 

http://surveyresearch.weebly.com/uploads/2/9/9/8/2998485/statistical_notes_2011_draft.pdf

 

Everything is available for free download.

 

 

John F Hall

 

[hidden email]

www.surveyresearch.weebly.com

 

 

 

 

 

From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of David Futrell
Sent: 10 November 2011 15:08
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Statistics Teaching Questions

 

Hi Everyone:

I'm going to be teaching a statistics course next semester for MBA Students. Most of these students are adults with actual jobs.

Since these folks are going to be managers (and not statisticians), I want to focus the course on helping them understand data and how statistics and analyses can help them solve relevant business problems. I'm hoping to use SPSS for the course (I haven't gotten a ruling from the university yet), but where I really need some advice is regarding a textbook. There are hundreds (many dozens, anyway) of business statistics textbooks and I'm going to have to pick one within the next few days. Do any of you have any recommendations for the text or any web resources for teaching a practical statistics class for MBA students?

Thanks,
David Futrell

 

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Re: Statistics Teaching Questions

Gregory Hildebrandt
In reply to this post by David Futrell
David,

You might take a look at "Multivariate Data Analysis, " Seventh Edition, by Hair, et. al.   One might describe it as having a marketing orientation.    What is particularly interesting is how many of the techniques covered in the various SPSS short courses, such as those one might take with a training subscription, are included in the book.   However, the book is not formally tied to SPSS point and click or syntax.  It is the appropriate level technically for most MBA students, but to a certain extent, one would be jumping over some of the traditional topics covered in STAT 101 for business students. 

There have been times when I've been constrained to teach relevant statistics in one course to MBA type students.  I have developed a couple of simple problems addressing the normal probability density function, and hypothesis testing and interval estimation using the sample mean and  both the population and sample standard deviations.  This  permits one to quickly move to the multiple regression analysis, which I view as the most valuable tool of all.  Sometimes when only one course is taken, and a traditional approach is taken, multiple regression analysis gets squeezed out.

Good luck in obtaining permission to purchase SPSS.  Only the Grad Pack and Faculty Pack, which have one year subscriptions,  may satisfy budget constraints.  But the students would obtain all modules except AMOS and the instructor would obtain all the modules.  I am about to check whether SPSS 20 is now available with these "Packs."
 
Greg Hildebrandt

On Nov 10, 2011, at 6:08 AM, David Futrell wrote:

Hi Everyone:

I'm going to be teaching a statistics course next semester for MBA Students. Most of these students are adults with actual jobs.

Since these folks are going to be managers (and not statisticians), I want to focus the course on helping them understand data and how statistics and analyses can help them solve relevant business problems. I'm hoping to use SPSS for the course (I haven't gotten a ruling from the university yet), but where I really need some advice is regarding a textbook. There are hundreds (many dozens, anyway) of business statistics textbooks and I'm going to have to pick one within the next few days. Do any of you have any recommendations for the text or any web resources for teaching a practical statistics class for MBA students?

Thanks,
David Futrell


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Re: Statistics Teaching Questions

David Futrell
All,

Thanks VERY much for your thoughtful comments on this topic. I have learned that the University offers students a grad pack version (Base, Advanced, Regression) of SPSS (version 19.0) for about $50 for a six-month rental. I have requested an inspection copy of Andy Fields "Discovering Statistics Using SPSS, which is available in paperback for $88.

Despite these choices, I don't have the intention of trying to turn them into analysts. Maybe I'm slow, but it took me about 5 years of nearly full time work before I felt that I was competent. . And my experience has been consistent with a couple of your comments....I  spend more than 90% of the time actually obtaining the data, getting it cleaned and formatted and ready for doing the "Stats" to it.

So I'm trying to figure out is what do managers (99% of whom will never DO analysis) need to know about statistics? And what can they learn in a 3-hour course that will be beneficial to them? I'll probably spend 1/3 of the time on the traditional stuff about distributions, probability, hypothesis testing, maybe an intro to regression. For the rest of the time, I'm planning to focus on bigger picture stuff. How can measurement, statistics, and other analytic methods be used to solve business problems. I'll teach them ABOUT QC methods, Experimental Design, Data Mining, Surveys, etc., but only to make them aware that there are practical and powerful tools that can help solve business problems. But they need to find qualified professionals to actually DO that kind of work.

Thanks again!

David Futrell

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Re: Statistics Teaching Questions

John F Hall

David

 

3 hours?  You must be joking!  My (about-to-be-ex-) son-in-law got more hours than that, plus a CD of SPSS.  Even then I had to show him what to do (No, I didn’t do his assignments for him) and lend him my copy of the (now unavailable except 2nd hand) Norusis 1987-89 Guide to SPSS.  The stats content of his course was abysmal.  As ViAnn said, MBA people are rarely or never going to do any analysis themselves. 

 

On the survey side, I would recommend Sunny Crouch’s book, which is specifically aimed at business:

 

Marketing Research for Managers (http://surveyresearch.weebly.com/crouch--housden-2003.html )

 

On the stats side, que faire?  Andy Field’s book is very good, but will they ever (have time to) read it?  They might be better off looking at:

 

Erik Mooi and Marko Sarstedt A Concise Guide to Market Research: The Process, Data, and Methods Using IBM SPSS Statistics (http://surveyresearch.weebly.com/mooi--sarstedt-2011.html)  You can read chunks of it on-line and it has the new-fangled 2D barcodes which mobile-phones can scan.

 

 

John F Hall

 

[hidden email]

www.surveyresearch.weebly.com

 

PS  Have a browse round the bits on my website, especially the page for web-based SPSS intros and tutorials

http://surveyresearch.weebly.com/spss-intros-and-tutorials.html

 

 

 

 

 

From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of David Futrell
Sent: 12 November 2011 17:23
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: Statistics Teaching Questions

 

All,

Thanks VERY much for your thoughtful comments on this topic. I have learned that the University offers students a grad pack version (Base, Advanced, Regression) of SPSS (version 19.0) for about $50 for a six-month rental. I have requested an inspection copy of Andy Fields "Discovering Statistics Using SPSS, which is available in paperback for $88.

Despite these choices, I don't have the intention of trying to turn them into analysts. Maybe I'm slow, but it took me about 5 years of nearly full time work before I felt that I was competent. . And my experience has been consistent with a couple of your comments....I  spend more than 90% of the time actually obtaining the data, getting it cleaned and formatted and ready for doing the "Stats" to it.

So I'm trying to figure out is what do managers (99% of whom will never DO analysis) need to know about statistics? And what can they learn in a 3-hour course that will be beneficial to them? I'll probably spend 1/3 of the time on the traditional stuff about distributions, probability, hypothesis testing, maybe an intro to regression. For the rest of the time, I'm planning to focus on bigger picture stuff. How can measurement, statistics, and other analytic methods be used to solve business problems. I'll teach them ABOUT QC methods, Experimental Design, Data Mining, Surveys, etc., but only to make them aware that there are practical and powerful tools that can help solve business problems. But they need to find qualified professionals to actually DO that kind of work.

Thanks again!

David Futrell