The Practice of Business Statistics: Using Data for Decisions

"The Practice of Business Statistics" immerses students in the course immediately, involving them in practical, statistics-supported business decision-making from the outset. Using real data to provide a context for tackling modern business problems, the book introduces a range of core ideas early including data production and interpretation. The usefulness of statistical concepts in contemporary business, the connections between probability and inference, and the relationship between data and decisions are emphasized. From this beginning, the text continually revisits and builds on what students have learned, re-purposing data sets from previous examples and exercises to explore different decision models in different situations. Pedagogically, "The Practice of Business Statistics" brings a number of new learning tools to the business statistics textbook, including: case studies (introduced in every chapter, the cases dramatize key concepts; selected examples in the chapter refer back to the cases, and chapter-ending pedagogy includes case study exercises); applet exercises (in some exercises, indicated with an icon, students work with manipulable data via applets on the Web site and/or CD; and applications (students see the immediate relevance of what they're learning through coverage of: consumer's supermarket shopping habits, returns on common stocks, salary distributions, stocks and bonds forecasting earnings, and mutual fund performance.