We get to know our data better by describing, summarizing, reporting, and visually inspecting them.
These activities are now often referred to as descriptive analytics, or exploratory data analysis.
We will conduct descriptive analytics of different types of data that managers, marketers, analysts, accountants, and other business professionals handle regularly.
Class Data Demos on Google Sheets: W1 Central Tendency & W1 Spread
Complete assigned readings before next class meeting, which are yellow-highlighted
W1-1 Course Intro: PPT
Complete assigned textbook readings before next class meeting (other items are optional)
- IA01: Class Survey (remember to answer Yes in Blackboard)
- Follow these tips on taking tests in Blackboard at William & Mary
- NFF Chapter 1: Why do we learn statistics? (pdf)
- Example Study: 2020 ACFE Report to the Nation
- NFF Chapter 2: A brief introduction to research design (pdf)
- NFF Chapter 3: Getting started with JASP (pdf)
- Business Analytics Defined (HBR)
- Can You Entrust that Decision to a Robot? (HBR)
- Mathematical Symbols, Phrases, & Formulas from Appendix F of Introductory Statistics (page 883-888)
- NFF Chapter 4: Descriptive statistics (pdf)
- Example Study: Sellers: Results from the Zillow Consumer Housing Trends Report 2021
- DA Worksheet #0102: Central Tendency (Solution; Python Colab)
- Khan Academy lectures and quizzes on Summarizing Quantitative Data
- JASP Tutorial on Descriptive Statistics
- 4 Analytics Concepts that Every Manager Should Understand (HBR)
W1-3 Describe a Variable Day 2: PPT
- NFF Chapter 5: Drawing graphs (pdf)
- Example Study: Bloomberg Businessweek’s MBA Ranking Cannot Be Replicated By The Published Data & Methodology
- Example Study: Zillow data visualizations
- DA Worksheet #03: Dispersion (Solution; Python Colab)
- Five charts that changed the world by BBC
- Khan Academy module on Random Variables (Distributions)
- Z-Scores and Probability from Discovering Statistics
- [MINI] z-scores by Data Skeptic podcast
You should also begin to explore potential topics for your team project. Instructions for the team project are available on the Week 7 page. For the TP01 assignment, complete the Introduction and Dataset sections of the team project report as a topic proposal for the instructor to approve.