Introduction to the Course
• Teaching staff: [Link]. Tran Thi Bich
Statistics Faculty
Email: bichtt@[Link]
STATISTICS • Lectures: as indicated
• Tutorials: 30 minutes - 1 hour, from lecture 2 to 7
• Materials:
- Gerald Keller (2011). Statistics for Management
and Economics (9th Edition).
- SPSS Statistics: Guide to Data Analysis
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Why studying this course? Why studying this course?
Recently, you’ve probably come across the following
information: Is the average score for the Math exam in the 2024 high
- 9h30p sáng qua, đoàn quân 2k7 lặng lẽ rời khỏi cổng trường, chiến school graduation exam reliable?
dịch 2k7 chấm dứt, BGD toàn thắng!
- Sai lầm lớn nhất của bố t là tao sinh tháng 12 năm 2k6 nhưng lại đợi
một tháng sau mới làm khai sinh.
- 2k7 lên xe bus bây giờ khéo còn được phụ nữ và trẻ em nhường ghế.
So what is this year high school graduation exam really like? Is it
much harder than last year?
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Why studying this course? Why studying this course?
• Do you know why this year a candidate with an SAT • Recently, I read a newspaper headline: “In the heart of
score of 1520 is only converted to an equivalent of the city, a student’s wage for 3 hours of part-time
26.4 points when applying to NEU? work is just equal to a bowl of Pho” (Baomoi).
Do you think this is true?
How can we verify this claim with the highest level of
certainty?
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Why studying this course? Course goals
• Can we predict graduates’ salaries based on their exam
scores?
• Understanding and Interpreting Results from Data
Analysis
Answering research questions in economics,
management, and business.
- What are the characteristics of the target customers?
- What is the relationship between variables?
- Will interest rates, gold prices, … increase or decrease
in the near future?
- …
Source: NEU research
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CLOs
Objectives of data analysis
Develop an understanding of a variety of
quantitative and statistical techniques that can be
Describe real-world situations applied to a wide range of business situations.
Test hypotheses Use statistical software applications to perform
Analyse relationship and forecast essential and practical data analysis for business
Make decisions in business and economics organizations.
Help studying other courses: Demonstrate the ability to prepare and analyze a
- Other courses’ assignments variety of data sets for specific purposes.
- Graduation thesis
Determine which statistical techniques are best
suited to which organizational problems.
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Topics will be covered Assessment
• Data Presentation: Tables and Charts
• Participation: 10%
• Data Presentation: Central Tendency and
• Mid-term exams: 40%
Dispersion
– Two midterm exams, each accounts for 20%
• Probability and Random variables • Final exams: 50%, closed book exam.
• Sampling distribution and Estimation • Further details (including date of exams and
• Hypothesis Testing deadline of assignments) given during the
• ANOVA course.
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How to achieve 10% of participation?
Mid-term exams: 40%
• Answer correctly the main point lists.
• Contribution in class and tutorials.
• Compliance with the class rules: • One group mid-term exam: 20%
– Come prepared – read the readings assigned. • Oral exam: 20%
– Turn off cell phones during classes.
– Do not engage in individual discussions
– No food in class time
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Hints for success Lecture 1
• Attend lectures and tutorials, supplement given
materials with your own comments and notes. Introduction to Statistics and
• Work carefully on the tutorials – doing them is how SPSS
you will understand and learn
• Time spent trying questions is well spent
• Constantly REFER to notes Reading materials:
• Use resources provided Chap 1, 2 (Keller)
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Outline
• Introduction to statistics
• Basic concepts
• Getting acquainted with SPSS What is statistics?
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What is statistics? So…
• This is not a matter of ordering soup! Statistics
involves matters of life and death… • Statistics is all about collecting, organising and
– If the probability of getting accident of an airplane is interpreting data
1/10,000, what is your chance of survival when you are
• Statistics is a way to get information from data and
on board?
make decisions under uncertainty
– How do you know?
• To accomplish the above feat, Statisticians rely on • Statistical analysis of data uses statistical
three related disciplines: modelling and probability: our main focus is on
data and techniques for analysing data
– Data analysis
– Probability
– Statistical inference
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The question is … Why is statistics important?
• How to get useful information from data to make a • Financial management (capital budgeting)
correct decision? It’s not easy! • Marketing management (pricing)
• Marketing research (consumer behaviour)
• Operations management (inventory)
• Accounting (forecasting sales)
• Human resources management (performance
appraisal)
• Information systems
• Economics (summarising, predicting)
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Types of statistics
Why is statistics important?
• Descriptive statistics:
Collecting, organising, summarising, and presenting data
E.g: graphical techniques;
numerical techniques
• Inferential statistics:
Estimating, predicting, and making decisions about
population based on sample data
E.g: estimation;
hypothesis testing
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Questions for Data Analysis
• In the descriptive statistics:
What is the general pattern of the studied variable
Applied for population or sample
• In the inferential statistics:
What can we infer for the population based on sample
Basic concepts: population and sample
results
Applied for population
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Population Sample
• Population is a set of all items or people that share • A sample is a smaller group of the population.
some common characteristics A sample survey is obtained by collecting
A census is obtained by collecting information information of some members of the population
about every member of a population - Collect the height of 1,000 Vietnamese citizens
- Collect the height of Vietnamese citizens - Verify the quality of a proportion of products that are
produced by factory X
- Verify the quality of all products that are produced by
factory X • Statistics: a descriptive measure of a sample
• Parameter: a descriptive measure of a population (x, s2 )
• Sampling: taking a sample from the population
( , 2 )
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Reasons to take sample (1) Reasons to take sample (2)
• A census can give accurate data but population is so
large • If we are willing to accept less than 100% accuracy,
we collect information from a sample, calculate its
statistics and use statistical inference to infer values
of parameters of the population
• We can do this because: a certain sample size
ensures that results from the sample are as accurate
as those of the population
• And benefits of sample: sample allows to investigate
Collecting information from the entire population is more detailed information
time-consuming, expensive, and sometimes
impossible.
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Important requirements Moving from population to sample
A sample must be representative for the
population. That means the profile of the
sample is the same as that of the population
=> apply sampling techniques
The sample size is large enough
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You need a sampling frame The second requirements
The sample size is large enough
Population
Sampling frame
(a list of all items of
the population)
Sample This question will be answered in lecture 7
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Basic concepts: variables and data Types of data
• A variable (also called attribute): is some
characteristics of population or sample items Data
Eg:
• Height of students
• Occupation of students upon graduation Qualitative Quantitative
(Categorical) (Interval)
• Data are the observed values of a variable
Eg:
• Height of 10 students: 1.6, 1.7, 1.55, 1.59, 1.5, 1.58,
1.64, 1.67, 1.58, 1.55 Nominal
Ordinal
Discrete
Continuous
• Occupation of 5 students: teller, accountant, IT,
marketing manager, teacher
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Qualitative data (Categorical data) Quantitative data
• Qualitative data refers to data that cannot be measured • Quantitative data consists of numerical values that can be
numerically but can be categorized based on characteristics measured.
or attributes. Eg:
• Marital status: single, married, divorced, and widowed • Mid-term test marks of 10 students: 7, 8, 10, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9, 7
• Study performance of students: poor, fair, good, very good, • Weights of postal packages
excellent • Monthly salary
• More classification: qualitative data can be classified as • More classification: quantitative data can be classified as
Nominal and Ordinal data interval and ratio data
Nominal data: Names or categories with no natural – Interval data: Numeric values with equal intervals but no true zero.
order Eg:
- Marital status: single, married, divorced, and widowed • Temperature: 10oC, 20oC, 40oC
Ordinal data: a sort of nominal data but their values are – Ratio data: Like interval data, but with a true zero point
in order Eg:
- Study performance of students: poor, fair, good, very good, • Weights of postal packages
excellent
- Opinions of consumers: strongly disagree, somewhat disagree,
neither disagree nor agree, agree, strongly agree
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More on quantitative data Activity 1
• Quantitative data can be divided into discrete or continuous • For each of the following examples of data, determine
– Discrete data: values are countable, often integers the type:
Eg:
• Number of children in family i. The number of miles joggers run per week
– Continuous data: can take any value within a range including [Link] starting salaries of graduates of advanced program
decimals.
Eg: [Link] months in which a firm’s employees choose to take
their vacations
• Monthly salary
[Link] occupation of graduates of Advanced Program
v. Teachers’ ranking
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Data sources Sources of secondary data
• Internet research
• Based on the method of collecting information, • Search through Vietcombank website ([Link]) to
know the exchange rate
data can be classified as Primary and Secondary • Search through Google to gather information about the performance
of private firms in Vietnam since ‘Doi moi’
– Primary data: collected by the organisation itself for
the particular purpose • Government data and official publications
• The General Statistics Office (GSO) of Vietnam provides all socio-
Eg: you need to know the consumer’s behaviour of economic information ([Link])
Techcombank, then collect this information yourself • Data from surveys carried out by GSO and other organisations
• The Ministry of Finance ([Link]) provides information on
– Secondary data: collected by other organisations for budget statement
other purposes • Internal and by-product data: data collected from different departments
in an organisation and used all together
Eg: the Vietnam household living standards survey in
2010 • Data from Sale Department, Human resource Department => decision
making
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Getting acquainted with SPSS
• Import the file ‘assignment 1 data [Link]’ into
SPSS and get familiar with SPSS.
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