INTRODUCTION TO STATISTICS
Nature and Scope of Statistics
Statistics- important in almost all fields
-the importance of statisticsis due to the increased amount
of data that is collected and disseminated to the public
The science of collecting, organizing, summarizing,
analyzing, and making inferences from data
The collection, organization, presentation, analysis,
or interpretation of data, especially as a branch of
mathematics in which deductions are made on the
assumption that the relationship between sufficient
samples of numerical data is characteristics of those
between all such data.
ORIGIN:
Latinstratisticum collegiums (lecture about the state affairs)
Italianstatistica (statesman or politician) /(compare to status)
Germanstatistic, originally designating the analysis of data
about state.
USES OF STATSTICS
-economics, psychology, biology, computer science, military
intelligence, sociology, agriculture, education, medicine,
chemistry, physics, and in many others. Statistical theory
applied to these diverse fields often results in changes that
benefit humanity.
1. aids in decision making
-provides comparison
-explains action that have taken place
-justifies a claim or assertion
2. summarizes data for public use
CATEGORIES OF STATISTICS
1. Descriptive statistics
organizing, summarizing, and presenting a mass of data to
yield meaningful information.
--this includes anything done to the data designed to
summarize, or describe without any attempt to make inference
or conclusion about the gathered data.
2. Inferential statisticsit is concerned with generalizing
about a population or other groups of data based on the study
of the sample.
--it comprises those methods concerned with the analysis of a
subset of data leading to predictions or inferences about the
entire set of data.
POPULATION AND SAMPLE
POPULATIONtotality of the observations with which we
are concerned
--the size of the population is the number of observations in
the population
--refers to a group of a total number of people, objects, or
reactions that can be described as having a unique or
combination of qualities
--finite or infinite
PARAMETERany numerical value describing a
characteristics of a population usually represented by Greek
letters
SAMPLEfinite numbers of objects selected from the
population
--collection of some elements in a population or is a
representative of the entire population
STATISTICany numerical value describing a characteristic
of a sample and usually represented by the ordinary letters of
the English alphabets
VARIABLEcharacteristic or attribute of persons of objects
which can assume different values for different persons or
objects
DATAinformation collected, organized, analyzed, and
interpreted by researchers
TYPES OF DATA
1. QUALITATIVE (CATEGORICAL) DATA
--measurements are simply recorded or described but NOT
quantified; NONNUMERIC in nature
2. QUANTITATIVE (NUMERICAL) DATA
-- assume numeric values (that is how much or how many)
a.) discrete variablesobtained through counting and
expressed as whole numbers and are always exact
b.)continuous variablesobtained through measurements and
NOT necessarily whole numbers
LEVELS/SCALE OF MEASUREMENTS
1.NOMINAL SCALEcategorizing cases according to the
presence or absence of some attribute.
--for the purpose of classification
--cannot be ranked
--no quantitative differences between nd among them
2.ORDINAL SCALEsimplest scale