This paper is from Session 5B: Evidence-based management

which comes under Topic 5: Statistics education in the disciplines and the workplace

The prevalence of statistics and data mining in management journals

Presenter

• Shirley Coleman (University of Newcastle, United Kingdom)

Co-authors

• Alex Douglas (Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom)
• Jiyu Anthony (Heriot-Watt University, United Kingdom)

Abstract

Postgraduate students tackling Business and Management Master’s degrees are told they will need to understand statistical terms when reading research journals. Some of the journals their lecturers recommend are philosophical or conceptual in nature but others are experimental and evidence-based. Many of the articles are purely qualitative and those that include quantitative analysis are either very basic or are rather sophisticated; it could be interpreted that there is a divide rather than a continuum between authors who are confident in statistics and those who avoid them. This paper reviews relevant journals and examines the prevalence of statistics and suggests some explanations for the findings. The quantitative methods lecturer can use this information when deciding what to teach and how to help students appreciate the importance of statistical analysis.