Week 1: Descriptive Analytics with Single Variables

Before running any analyses, we need to understand our data first. 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 (EDA). 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 True in Blackboard)
• NFF Chapter 1: Why do we learn statistics? (pdf)
• Example Study: 2024 ACFE Report to the Nations
• 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)

W1-2 Describe a Variable Day 1: PPT Video

• 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 8 page.