Deborah Rumsey (Ohio State University), and Camille Fairbourn (Utah State University)
Abstract
Business statistics can be a challenging course to teach, especially for those of us who do not have business backgrounds, and one of those challenges centers on the seemingly never-ending search for good data sets. While many of us have a few good examples in our back pockets, we often find ourselves looking for additional sources of updated data that matches student interest and fits our teaching needs. And upon finding good data, our job does not end there – we need to analyze the data and come up with good questions to ask our students to investigate. In this session we discuss the qualities of good business statistics data, and the challenges and rewards of using them. In groups we will examine some data sets in detail that have been analyzed, and focus on the formulation of good questions to ask to pique student interest and help meet the learning objectives. We provide additional resources, including a website composed of business data sets we have used, and questions we have asked our students.