Unit 7B Glossary
BTEC Level 3 Business Studies. Unit 7: Business Decision Making
Bar charts - Graphics used to compare quantities by representing them using bars of different heights
Buffer stock levels - A level of inventory that a company will strive to maintain in order to avoid disruptions in production.
Business data - Fact and statistics about an organisation or the market it operates in that is collected, stored and available for analysis
Correlation coefficient - A measure of the strength of the relationship between two variables.
Dispersion - The extent to which values vary from the average value.
Extrapolation - An extension of a trend line to make a prediction about the future of that trend.
Forecasts - Predictions about the future Frequency distributions - How often a variable appears in a sample.
Histograms - Graphics used to compare quantities by representing them using bars of different surface areas.
Legal requirements - Government rules about the way in which things need to be done.
Line graphs - Diagrams of data in which specific values are plotted as dots and connected using lines.
Linear trend lines - An approximation of the trend in a graph by drawing a line of best fit
Long-term business strategy - Plans that an organisation has for the future
Market trends - The direction of preferences and behaviours of customers
Mean - The average calculated by adding the scores and then dividing by the number of scores.
Median - The average measured as the middle score in a distribution; half the scores are above it and half are below it.
Mode - The value that occurs most frequently in a given data set.
Percentiles - The values obtained by dividing a data set into 100 parts
Pie charts - A Graphic representation of data. A circle is divided into sectors which shows a percentage of a whole.
Primary sources of data - Data gathered first hand for the purpose of the investigation.
Quartiles - The values obtained by dividing data sets into four
Representative values - The middle of a group of scores, as represented by the mean, mode, and median.
Sample sizes - The number of participants chosen to participate in a research endeavour so that their replies will be representative of the population.
Scatter graphs - The use of visuals to study the relationship between two factors.
Secondary sources of data - Data gathered that already exists as part of previous research but may be relevant to current investigation
Sensitive data - Data that should not be made public because it is personal or could be harmful if misused by the wrong persons
Standard deviation - A measure of how dispersed a set of data is from the mean.
Statistical process - The steps taken in a research project such as form a question, collect data, analyse the data, interpret the results
Valid data - Data that is a true representation of the issue being investigated
