Relevance Of Prerequisites To Business Statistics: Some Preliminary Hypotheses And Tests

Abstract

Statistics is an essential part of an undergraduate business degree program. Undergraduate institutions commonly require prerequisite courses to ensure that students are prepared to learn the material in the core courses.  Presumably, successful completion of prerequisite courses should increase students’ confidence and performance in the core courses. Students often express fear and anxiety over quantitative and mathematics courses, and frequently object to the math prerequisite for the business statistics course, complaining that it only results in prolonging their degree program. The objective of this paper is to examine empirically whether the math prerequisites for the business statistics course help the learning experience. This study suggests that these prerequisites do help students at a four-year state institution with an open enrollment policy. Grades are used as the measure of performance for both the prerequisite and the core statistics courses. The findings confirm that prerequisites should be kept in place for the business statistics course.