Making Statistics More Effective in Schools of Business

Abstract

This is a report on a conference held June 20-21, 1986, at the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago, on Making Statistics More Effective in Schools of Business. The conception and design of the conference owe much to Robert Hogg's working conference to develop recommendations for the statistical education of engineers at the University of Iowa in July 1984, summarized in Hogg et al. (1985). In particular, the Chicago conference was a working conference in which most of the activity took place in discussions in small groups called task-force that were charged with the development of the preliminary written recommendations. There were about 130 participants, approximately a quarter from industry, and all contributed to the conference. One of the participants was Robert Hogg, to whom we owe thanks for advice on both procedures and substance. The Chicago conference generated the same kind of intense discussion and enthusiasm as did Hogg's, and we emerged from it with a number of preliminary reports that have subsequently been revised. The revised reports, with minor editing for consistency of format, are presented after this overview and summary as a series of short papers written by leaders of workshops at the conference. We were cochairs of the conference.