Statistics Applied to Business Sciences

The basic recommended knowledge is the one common, in what regards Statistics, to the various syllabus of the undergraduate Mathematics courses in the different branches of compulsory education in Portugal (http://www.dge.mec.pt/), as well as the fundamental topics of the curricular units of Quantitative Methods Applied to Business Sciences and Management Information Systems.

The classes are designed, according to the curriculum plan, to be both theoretical and practical. They are planned and prepared to actively engage students at various moments or throughout the entire class.

In the theoretical part of the lesson, the expository method will be frequently used to introduce concepts, fundamental results, and methods, interspersed with tasks that encourage active participation by all students (interactive lectures). These tasks include posing questions to and by students, orally and/or on a platform, as well as proposing debates/discussions in small groups on certain exposed aspects/topics.

The practical part will be designed to comprehensively develop the listed skills. This will be achieved through commented exemplification of procedures and/or problem-solving under the guidance/tutoring of the teacher. Autonomous work or work in small groups will be encouraged, progressing towards project-based learning, with the completion of a group assignment. There will be a strong interaction between theory and practice, with a central focus on visualizing and dealing with actual scenarios.

It is assumed that students attend classes regularly and are available for continued involvement beyond the classroom. This includes initiating or completing tasks agreed upon during class.

All supporting materials are available on the InforEstudante|Nonio platform. Other platforms that allow for interaction may also be used.

Statistical data analysis is relevant in numerous business contexts for the description and diagnosis of phenomena of interest, as well as for decision support. The goals and skills of the UC of Statistics Applied to Business Sciences are focused on recognizing this potential.

Goals:

• Portray data sets through univariate and bivariate descriptive statistical analysis.
• Perform a simple regression analysis to explain a phenomenon of interest.
• Generate insights relating to a phenomenon by conducting descriptive analysis of the associated dataset.
• Debate the veracity of claims based on statistical analysis of the associated dataset.
• Formulate and conduct small statistical investigations for decision support.

Skills:

• Recognize situations that may benefit from a descriptive, univariate, bivariate, or regression statistical study, or inferential statistical analysis.
• Identify, among a set of basic statistical techniques, those suitable for processing a certain set of data.
• Organize a set of data in tables and graphs for frequency distribution analysis.
• Select the most appropriate measure or measures to summarize a set of data, based on a specific purpose.
• Comment on the relevant information contained in a graph.
• Illustrate a statement with a suitable graphic.
• Describe the stages of a statistical investigation.
• Formulate a research question relevant to a proposed problem.
• Apply a hypothesis test to answer the research question.
• Construct a confidence interval suitable for the investigation.
• Draw statistical conclusions from the conducted investigation.
• Translate statistical conclusions into research results.
• Use software to support obtaining the results.

1. Descriptive statistics
1.1. Basic concepts
1.2. Data representation
1.3. Statistical measures

2. Simple linear regression:
2.1. Correlation
2.2. Simple linear regression model
2.3. Least squares regression line

3. Statistical inference
3.1. The role of probability distributions
3.2. Central Limit Theorem.
3.3. Parametric estimation: point and interval estimation
3.4. Parametric hypothesis testing for one population
3.5. Introduction to statistical investigations

NAO

Fundamental:

• Curto, J.D. (2019). Potenciar os Negócios? A Estatística Dá uma Ajuda! (Muitas Aplicações em Excel e poucas fórmulas…), 3.ª Edição. Edição do Autor.
• Murteira, B., Ribeiro, C.S., Silva, J.A., Pimenta, C., Pimenta, F. (2023). Introdução à Estatística, 4.ª Edição. Escolar Editora.
• Webster, A. (2006). Estatística Aplicada à Administração e Economia. McGraw-Hill.
• Slides and worksheets available at InforEstudante|Nonio.

Complementary:

• Albright, S.C., Winston, W.L. (2019). Business Analytics: Data Analysis and Decision Making, 7th Edition. Cengage Learning.
• Alwan, L.C., Craig, B.A., McCabe, G.P. (2020). The Practice of Statistics for Business and Economics, 5th Edition. MacMilan.
• Evans, J.R. (2020). Business Analytics, 3rd Edition. Pearson.
• Tintle, N., Chance, B.L., Cobb, G.W., Rossman, A.J., Roy, S., Swanson, T.,  VanderStoep, J. (2020). Introduction to Statistical Investigations, 2nd Edition. Wiley.