Find the probability of two events that are unlikely to happen: getting struck by lightning, winning the lottery, being attacked by a shark, creating a perfect March madness bracket, etc. Discuss and compare the probability of the two selected events. Did the results surprise you?

Module Goals

After completing this module, students will be able to do the following:

⦁ Apply basic and conditional probability to problems.
⦁ Utilize counting rules.
⦁ Compute simple and joint probabilities.
⦁ Leverage Microsoft Excel to create pivot table, frequency distributions, and contingency grids.

Overview

Module 3 discusses probability, which is a bridge between the descriptive statistics covered in Module 2 and the topics of statistical inference and regression which will be covered later in this course.

We will discuss the probability rules which include:

(1) no probability can be negative,
(2) no probability can be more than 1, and
(3) the sum of the probabilities of a set of mutually exclusive events equals 1.0.

In addition, basic probability, conditional probability, Bayes’ theorem, apply counting rules to problems, and combinations and permutations are explored.

We will also be using Microsoft Excel to develop a pivot table and contingency table. There are videos and PDF directions to help you develop these items in Excel.

Goals Alignment

⦁ University Mission Based Outcomes – 4, 5
⦁ Program Learning Goals – 4
⦁ Course Learning Objectives – 1, 2, 3, 4

Learning Materials

⦁ Levine, D., Szabat, K., & Stephan, D. (2020). Business statistics: A first course (8th ed.). Pearson. ISBN 9780135177785. Read Chapter 4.

Additional Resources:

Contingency Table.mp4
Pivot Table.mp4
Pivot Table Directions.pdf
Probability.pptx
President- practice.xlsx

Assignment: Discussion Question:

Probability is all around us. For example, you have probably heard the saying, “You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than you have at winning the lottery”, but have you looked at the numbers (statistics) or have you taken their word for it?

For the discussion, find the probability of two events that are unlikely to happen: getting struck by lightning, winning the lottery, being attacked by a shark, creating a perfect March madness bracket, etc. Discuss and compare the probability of the two selected events. Did the results surprise you?

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