Textbooks designed for business statistics customarily present inferential statistics whose premises contradict the definitions developed in descriptive statistics. In particular, because the standard deviation of a population cannot be calculated if the population mean is unknown, hypothesis tests and confidence intervals for the mean that rely on the population standard deviation pose an inconsistency between lessons. To reduce potential confusion and utilize both class time and students’ homework time efficiently, the present note proposes de-emphasizing these tests and intervals in favor of those that depend on the sample standard deviation.

Anderson, D.R., D.J. Sweeney, T.A. Williams, J.D. Camm, J.J. Cochran, M.J. Fry, and J.W. Ohlmann. 2024. Statistics for Business & Economics, 15th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage.

Dambolena, I.G., S.E. Eriksen, and D.P. Kopcso. 2009. “An Intuitive Introduction to Hypothesis Testing.” INFORMS Transactions on Education 9(2):53–62.

Debnath, S.C., S. Tandon, and L.V. Pointer. 2007. “Designing Business School Courses to Promote Student Motivation: An Application of the Job Characteristics Model.” Journal of Management Education 31(6):812–831.

Granitz, N., S. Chen, and K.K. Kohli. 2014. “Choosing Business as a College Major: A Survey of High School Students.” Journal of the Academy of Business Education 15:1–22.

Gravetter, F.J., and L.B. Wallnau. 2017. Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, 10th ed. Boston MA: Cengage.

Harter, C., and C.J. Asarta. 2022. “Teaching Methods in Undergraduate Intermediate Theory, Statistics and Econometrics, and Other Upper-Division Economics Courses: Results from a Sixth National Quinquennial Survey.” American Economist 67(1):132–146.

Kim, D.F., S. Markham, and J.D. Cangelosi. 2002. “Why Students Pursue the Business Degree: A Comparison of Business Majors Across Universities.” Journal of Education for Business 78(1):28–32.

Lind, D.A., W.G. Marchal, and S.A. Wathen. 2024. Statistical Techniques in Business and Economics, 19th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Liu, Z. 2017. “Teaching Reform of Business Statistics in College and University.” Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education 13(10):6901–6907.

Matthews, K.N., D.R. Edmondson, and L. Matthews. 2024. “Why Students Select Their College Major: An Investigative Study.” Atlantic Marketing Journal 13(1):Article 11.

McClave, J.T., P.G. Benson, and T. Sincich. 2016. Statistics for Business and Economics, 13th ed. London: Pearson.

Mitra, S. 2022. “Teaching Statistics and Data Science to Business Students.” Chance 25(4):27–35.

———. 2023. “How Are Students Learning in a Business Statistics Course? Evidence from Both Direct and Indirect Assessment.” INFORMS Transactions on Education 23(2):95–103.

Moore, D.S., G.P. McCabe, L.C. Alwan, and B.A. Craig. 2016. The Practice of Statistics for Business and Economics, 4th ed. New York: W.H. Freeman.

Peck, R., C. Olson, and J.J. Devore. 2015. Introduction to Statistics and Data Analysis, 5th ed. Pacific Grove CA: Brooks/Cole.

Sharma, A.M., and A. Srivastav. 2021. “Study to Assess Attitudes Toward Statistics of Business School Students: An Application of the SATS-36 in India.” International Journal of Instruction 14(3):207–222.

Shiu, E. 2013. “Improving Learning in Statistics—A Pilot Trial Study to Achieve the Triple Effects of Depth, Breadth and Integration.” International Journal of Management Education 11(1):12–24.

Simons, A.M. 2020. “Making Business Statistics Come Alive: Incorporating Field Trial Data from a Cookstove Study into the Classroom.” Applied Economics Teaching Resources 2(3):76–86.

Soto, A.E.C., S. Vanhoof, W. Van den Noortgate, and P. Onghena. 2007. “Students’ Misconceptions of Statistical Inference: A Review of the Empirical Evidence from Research on Statistics Education.” Educational Research Review 2(2):98–113.

Stevens, S.P., and S.W. Palocsay. 2012. “Identifying Addressable Impediments to Student Learning in an Introductory Statistics Course.” INFORMS Transactions on Education 12(3):124–139.

Zanakis, S.H., and E.R. Valenzi. 1997. “Student Anxiety and Attitudes in Business Statistics.” Journal of Education for Business 73(1):10–16.