Abstract:

A number of transformations currently occurring both prior to, during, and after the undergraduate business degree are greatly altering students’ experience of the business statistics curriculum. Innovations adopted in the mathematics curricula in both junior high school and high school will occur in the next few years throughout most of the United States and its territories. Business statistics curricula must change to take advantage of a the presence of new students who have received superior statistical preparation prior to university education and who, in most cases, will already have been exposed to many basic statistical concepts. Meanwhile, dramatic alterations in the business environment, including big data, have created new expectations of business graduates. These have resulted in new subfields in some educational institutions, including the arrival of business analytics as a concentration. There is a continuing need for statistics, research, communications and technology to be introduced more explicitly to business students because of increasing workplace demands. These four skills must be incorporated into all business courses whether basic or specialized. These curricular revisions can be constrained not only by budgetary concerns but by the academic controversies they can engender at many higher education institutions. The paper closes with recommendations for administrators and business faculty as they rethink business statistics and its role in business education.

Keywords:

Teaching, business statistics, curricular reform, undergraduate business education, administration of higher education, business faculty.