Math skills in MBA programs

Recently, I received the following work from a nameless student at a nameless school in a master's degree program in business. It isn't their first pass at this assignment, it is their second stab:

1.7636 +/- 2*.0231316=
1.7636 +/- .0462632=
1.300968 or 1.8098632

The student is far from being alone. So many students today just don't do math.

Teaching DL can at times be so frustrating...

I'm particularly disturbed that in our math illiterate world, students are less and less capable in quantitative skills.

What does an MBA mean anyway? Is doing basic addition and subtraction a required skill? Should students with no quantitative skills actually earn MBAs? Or are we simply debasing the currency by saying, effectively, "Anyone can earn an MBA even if they can't add."?

Regards - Adny

 

Or "can't punch the numbers on their calculators."

 

You raise some interesting questions; I wish I had answers. Though some degreeinfo members might disagree, I believe the math sections of the GMAT are excellent tests of the quantitative skills of incoming MBA students. Of course, it would help if more MBA programs required scores of 650 or greater, and took a good hard look at the scores on all math-related sections of the GMAT.

Frankly, I think if a student has problems with word problems and math operations, I'm not sure they should be allowed to go forward, or go futher in the program. It's true a calculator or a spreadsheet program can "spit out" an answer. However, if the student doesn't understand the order of operations they can't be sure if the answer is reasonable.

 

A colleague of my father's, teaching a first year physics course, wrote a formula on the board in the form (A÷B)÷(C÷D). He said, "This is of course equivalent to" and then rewrote it in the form (A÷B)×(D÷C).

At the end of the lecture, a student came up to him and asked, "Could you explain how you did that algebraic manipulation?"

"Well," said the professor, "it's quite simple. If you want to divide a half by a third, how do you do it?"

The student replied, "I use my calculator."

 

Electronic Cash Registers

This demonstrates that the current generation has become dependant on calculators/computers to do the most simple of basic math for them. Without the aide of a calculator, they are like deer in headlights. Let me give an illustration...

When I was growing up, I worked at a cash register. When a customer gave me the money to pay for a product, I had to instantly calculate (in my mind) how much change was due back to him. Computerized cash registers had not been invented yet. The easiest way to do that was to count his change back to him, backwards, while handing it to him i.e. if a product cost $8.76 and if he hands you a 20 dollar bill, you hand him the money counting backwards to him: "$8.80 (hand him 4 pennies), $9.00 (hand him two dimes), $10.00 (hand him a dollar bill), $20.00 (hand him a 10 dollar bill)." This finalized the transaction. Some of you are not old enough to know what I'm talking about. Today, they just stuff a wad of change/cash in your hand without counting it to you.

Today, if an electronic cash register doesn't tell the clerk exactly how much money to return to the customer, then they are totally lost. They stand there, staring at the cash register with a blank stare on their face. It is a remarkable sight to behold.

 

I would have to agree with Dr. Borchers. The basis of any MBA program is to have the ability to manipulate data in order to make rational business decisions. In my experience, I have encountered numerous MBA graduates who cannot perform simple ratios and efficiency measurements.

As a consultant to the federal government, I work with several MBA and MSc graduate co-workers. Last year, while working on the budget of a major project, I was asked by a female co-worker how to compute several budget accuracy ratios, namely:

Budget sales accuracy = actual sales/budget sales

Budget cost compliance = actual costs/budgeted costs

Budget profit reliability = actual profit/budgeted profit

My answer to her was, "you should know the answer......you have an MBA as well."

I believe that all MBA students should be required to take courses in financial mathematics, statistics, business mathematics, and management science.

 

This is called innumeracy. A good (and very readable) book on this subject is by Paulos and a review can be read at:
http://innumeracy.com/
Another page with articles on innumeracy can be found at
http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/maths/paulosja.htm
I believe the study of innumeracy could be an excellent topic for a thesis or dissertation in many areas including business, education, sociology and psychology .

 

It's worse than that, really, as the above is not really math, but arithmetic. As a math major, I was always amazed at the number of people who told me I should become an accountant, since I was "good at numbers." Anyone who has seriously studied math knows that math has almot nothing to do with adding columns of numbers (I don't mean to imply, however, that accountants are not good at math - only that they are vastly different disciplines).

Here's some real math in a business setting

math finance

Tom57
BA, math UC Berkeley
MSc in progress UoL External

 

Perhaps I should do an MBA if it is that easy!
Roy Maybery

 

Re: Re: Math skills in MBA programs

Given my first thought after reading your quote, remind me never to work with you.




TomNixon