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Course Coordinator

Norah Ellery (Semester 1) Warren McNoe (Semester 2)

Paper details

BSNS 102 is an introductory course in business statistics customised to meet the needs of Commerce students. It covers descriptive and inferential statistics with applications for business research and practice, including marketing, management, accounting, economics, tourism, and finance. Students are introduced to spreadsheets and statistical packages. Practical work emphasises applications and SPSS is applied to a comprehensive semester-long business scenario.

Students are given a solid grounding in statistical techniques for business—this is fundamental for both university study and future employment. BSNS 102 aims to help students gain the statistical knowledge required to complete more specialised and advanced courses in the School of Business, while also providing the understanding of statistics necessary to succeed in the business world.

Potential students

The course is for students who are majoring in Commerce. It is a core paper for the BCom degree.

Main topics

1. Descriptive statistics
2. Sampling
3. Probability
4. Probability distributions
5. Sampling distributions
6. Confidence intervals and hypothesis testing for one population
7. Hypothesis testing for differences in two populations
8. ANOVA
9. Chi-squared tests
10. Correlation and regression
11. Time series
12. Non-parametric methods

Required texts

While a number of first-year introductory statistics textbooks are appropriate, the following text is recommended:

Selvanathan, Selvanathan, Keller & Warrack, Australian Business Statistics

New copies of this book are available at the University Bookshop. Second-hand copies are also often advertised.

The following website is useful:

Rice Virtual Lab in Statistics http://onlinestatbook.com/rvls.html

Lecturers and tutors

• Mrs Norah Ellery
• Mr Warren McNoe
• Ms Barbara Chambers
• Dr Andreas Penckwitt
• Dr David Alexander

Lectures

2 hours per week

Tutorials

1 hour tutorial per week

Tutors are also available to provide additional help during their office hours.

Internal assessment

A student's final grade is determined by performance in four components:

1. Individual tasks - 20%
2. Two quizzes - 20%
3. Final exam - 60%

To pass BSNS 101 a student must pass the final 3-hour exam. If a student fails, the final exam your overall mark will be a fail, regardless of internal assessment.

Please note: This course outline is indicative only; it is meant for students thinking about taking the course. No student currently registered in the course should rely upon this indicative outline for guidance. If you are a current student in the course, then you must consult the course outline handed out most recently by your instructor (in class, by e-mail, or via BlackBoard). Please consult with your instructor if you are uncertain on any element of the course outline; you cannot rely upon this web-based indicative course outline if you are currently in the course.