Syllabus for MSIS 340 Research Methods in Business
January 21 - April 28, 2012
Spring Break March 10 -18, 2012

Welcome to Research Methods in Business. The text is an impressive piece of work, since it explains deep ideas in Statistics without using advanced math.
We identify and locate data sources, consider ways to gather primary and secondary data, perform analysis using the computer, and effectively interpret and present findings. We focus on essential tools for the investigation of business phenomena where chance variation is a factor. The design of experiments, sampling, measuring, prediction, and causation are among the topics discussed. We reexamine some of the concepts covered in the prerequisite statistics course from a more critical perspective. Excel is used extensively to illustrate business research principles including simulation.
Here is the writeup on box and whisker plots

Text:Statistics: Concepts and Controversies (7th Ed) by David S. Moore and William I. Notz

Instructor: Art DuPre'

Office Hours: 1WP 1015B, SAT 8:30-9:00 AM, and by appointment

Class: SAT 9:00 - 11:55 AM 1WP 303

Telephone: 732-887-3484 (cell)

THe correspondence percentages and letter grades is as follows:

0-59 60-69 70-74 75-79 80-84 85-89 90-100
F D C C+ B B+ A

There will be two 10-minute quizzes at each class meeting and two tests each lasting 80 minutes.

There will be a final exam lasting three hours.

Homework will be assigned and worked in class the next meeting. You are expected to do this by yourself. The homework is solely for your benefit, and will help you with the quizzes, but will not be collected or graded.

The percentage grade for the course will be computed as follows:

c = (100q+80t1+80t2+180f)/440

where c is the course percentage grade, f is the percentage grade on the final exam, t1 is the percentage grade on the first test, and t2 is the percentage grade on the second test, and q is the sum of the highest 10 quizzes.

DateChapters and Topics
January 21 Chapter 1 - Where do data Come From?
Chapter 2 - Samples, Good and Bad
January 28 Chapter 3 - What Do Samples Tell Us?
Chapter 4 - Sample Surveys in the Real World
February 4 Chapter 5 - Experiments, Good and Bad
Chapter 6 - Experiments in the real World
February 11 Chapter 7 - Data Ethics
Chapter 8 - Measuring
February 18 Chapter 9 - Do the Numbers Make Sense?
Chapter 10 - Graphs, Good and Bad
February 25 Chapter 11 - Displaying Distributions with Graphs
Chapter 12 - Describing Distributions with Numbers
March 3 Chapter 13 - Normal Distributions
Test 1 - Chapters 1 - 12
March 24 Chapter 14 - Describing Relationships: Scatterplots and Correlation
Chapter 15 - Describing Relationships: Regression, Prediction and Causalities
March 31 Chapter 16 - The Consumer Price Index and Government Statistics
Chapter 17 - Thinking about Chance
April 7 Chapter 18 - Probability Models
Chapter 19 - Simulation
April 14 Chapter 20 - The House Edge:Expected Values
Chapter 21 - What Is a Confidence Interval?
April 21 Chapter 22 - What Is a Test of Signicance?
Chapter 23 - Use and Abuse of Statistical Inference
Test 2 - Chapters 14 - 22
April 28 Chapter 24 - Two-Way Tables and the Chi-Square Test
Review for Final Exam
May 5 Final Exam - Chapters 1 - 23