Statistics for Managers: What Have You Learned About Statistics? Descriptive Statistics, Central Tendency Measurement, Measures of Spread

Statistics for Managers
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Research question: What have you learned about statistics?
Introduction
Statistics forms an important part of the decision-making process in an organization. Managers rely on statistical findings to determine the strategic plans to be pursued by the organization. Managers may need statistics of the size of customers in the market to determine the level of production for the firm. Managers may also need statistics concerning the number of competing companies in the market to decide on effective advertising strategies (Tanner & Youssef-Morgan, 2010). Furthermore, managers rely on statics concerning the financial expenditure and sales of the organization to determine salaries for its employees. To elaborate on the role of statistics in the company, the research focused on five major course elements namely; Inferential statistics, descriptive statistics, hypothesis development and testing, selection of appropriate statistical tests and evaluating statistical results.
Descriptive statistics
Descriptive statistics plays a significant role in analyzing data. Usually, it gives a summary of data in a manner that makes it possible to get the actual meaning of data patterns. With descriptive statistics, managers can only conclude from the data at hand and cannot decide based on the unproven hypothesis (Tanner & Youssef-Morgan, 2010). Descriptive statistics helps to derive meaning from bulky raw data and hence makes it possible for managers to visualize and interpret the clear message from the data. The two major types of statistics used describe data include; spread measurement and central tendency measurement.
Central tendency measurement
Central tendency analysis refers to using a frequency distribution for grouped data to determine the central position. Various statistical approaches used in determining central tendency include; mean mode and median. For example, an organization with 300 employees can get the average salary for each employee by dividing the total expenditure used on salaries by 300. The same organization can determine the median for workers' wages by rearranging the pay for individual workers in either ascending or descending order and selecting the figure in the middle (Nisha, 2010). Finally, the same organization can get the mode for employees' choosing amount paid to many employees.
Measures of spread
It summarizes grouped data by availing facts on the range of the scores. For instance, the average salary for 300 employees could be $1,000. That does not imply that all employees earn that amount. The pay may spread due to different ranks and functions in the organizations; some employees will earn higher wages while the majority will earn lower wages (Nisha, 2010). Measures of spread help in determining the extent to which scores range in this case the salaries of employees. Some of the statistical techniques used in describing spread include quartiles, range, variance, absolute deviation and standard deviation, table and graphs are used to summarize data in descriptive statistics.
Inferential statistics
To make conclusions beyond the data at hand, application of inferential statistics is essential. Inferential statistics helps in obtain...