Lesson

Definition and Concepts of

1 Statistics

1.1 Introduction

What comes into your mind when you encounter the icon below?

Probably you might say that it is a graph and the arrow shows how the data
moves. You might wonder what is it all about? Actually in simple analysis these
bars and arrows talks about a certain phenomenon which could be interpreted
accordingly. That is where statistics come into the picture. Croxton and Cowden
(2017) define the nature of statistics as the science of collection, presentation,
analysis and interpretation of numerical data. It is derived from Latin word
statisticum collegium which means council of state. And also from Italian word
statista which means statesman or politician. Hence, it involves methods of
condensing data in consideration with various social , economic and political
issues.
Statistics as a word originally refers to information that is useful to the “state”
particularly for taxation as well as the national budget. The meaning of statistics
was later expanded to include other quantitative data. For instance, number of
accidents, birth rate or death rates is types of information which have become
associated with statistics.
Problems can be encountered is all types of discipline. Solving them
requires the gathering of relevant data which if not properly organized and
analyzed, would result to useless and invalid results. To make them meaningful,
knowledge of statistical methods have to be employed.
Statistics, as its name implies originally refers to information that is useful
to any field of sciences and disciplines. The word statistics means different things
to different people. To a student, statistics refer to the test results that he obtained
for his entire subjects. To a guidance counselor, statistics are IQ scores and other
standardized test score. To a high school principal, statistics pertain to enrollment
figures; report on absenteeism, and salaries of teachers. To a basketball
enthusiast, statistics are the number of shots, number of free throws, and number
of fouls. To an ordinary person, statistics simply means any set of quantitative or
numeral data.
As a consequence, the word statistics came to be used interchangeably
which data or sets of information. Statistics is defined as a branch of science
dealing with the methods of collecting, organizing, summarizing, presenting,
analyzing and interpreting quantitative.
Furthermore, it is Ronald A. Fisher (1890-1962) who considered the father
of modern statistics along with Karl Pearson. It was Fisher who laid the groundwork
for much of experimental design, statistical inference, and the procedure known as
Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Fisher argued for the concept of randomization in
experimental design and proposed the now conventional use of p-values of .05 as
a threshold for statistical significance. Fisher also developed the maximum
likelihood method of estimation (i.e., estimating parameters of a statistical model
given observations).

1.2 Applications of Statistics

Statistical methods are indispensable tools in many researches in

education, psychology, medicine, business, agriculture, and other disciplines. In
school, statistics is applied to formulate policies on admission and readmission of
students, to devise a system of measurement and evaluation, to determine which
among several known methods of instruction is best for certain concepts or skills,
and to determine the relationship between educational performance and
socioeconomic status.
In business, statistics is useful in the areas of finance, production, quality
control, promotion and advertising, and marketing. Medical researches use
statistical tools to evaluate the effectiveness of some medical practices in the
prevention of particular diseases and to test the effectiveness of drugs. Statistics
is also vital tool for behavioral scientists who want to determine the effect of certain
treatments or condition to human behaviors. For example, what is the anxiety on
a specific tasks performance? Are the children from small family achievers than
those coming from large families? Does alcohol affect the productivity of workers?
These are but few questions whose answer may be obtained with the use of
statistics.

1.3 Descriptive Inferential Statistics

As a science, statistics has two major concerns; 1) descriptive or deductive

statistics, and 2) inductive or inferential statistics.
• Descriptive statistics can be defined as those methods involving
summarization, presentation, computation, and interpretation of data in
order to describe the various features of the set of data properly.
• Inferential statistics can be defined as those methods that aim inferences
or implication regarding the characteristics of the population by studying its
representative sample.

Example of descriptive statistics:

1. At least 5% of all fires reported last year in Metro Manila were
deliberately set by arsonists.
2. Of all babies who have received BCG vaccine at the Bulacan Medical
Center in the first quarter of 2019, 75% did not develop fever.
3. Of the 560 students in Mathematics in the Modern World (MMW) who
took the final examination only 5% did not make it.

Example of inferential statistics:

1. As a result of the recent survey, President Duterte’s popularly has
gone down dramatically.
2. As a result of the recent implementation of the E-vat law, we can
expect the prices to go higher during the holiday seasons.
3. UP Projection of 150k COVID-19 cases by the end of August 2020.
https://philippineslifestyle.com/150k-covid-19-cases-by-end-of-august-up-
projection/

1.4 Key statistical Concepts

Population and Sample

• A population (or universe) – is the totality of objects, individuals, things
under consideration.
• A sample – is part of the population that is selected for analysis.
Example:
Suppose the student government of a certain school wishes to conduct a
survey regarding the perceptions of the student quality of life in the campus. The
population of the study would include all the currently enrolled students while the
sample would comprise only those students who have been selected to participate
the survey

Parameter and Statistics

Parameter and statistics are terms for the computed values use to describe
the population or the sample being studied.
Parameter – is a summary measure that is computed to describe the
characteristics of the entire population.
Example:
µ (mean), Þ (correlation), ð (standard deviation) of the population.
Statistics - is a summary measure that is computed to describe the
characteristics of only a sample from population.
Example:
Mean, x̅ commonly called the average; standard deviation, s; correlation, r

Qualitative and Quantitative Data

The data that will be used in describing the characteristics of population or
the sample representative are basically of two types, namely: categorical or
qualitative data and numerical or quantitative data.

Qualitative data – are data gathered from categorical responses.

Example:
1. The response to the question “Are you a scholar?”
O Yes O No
2. The response to the question “What is your religion?”
O Catholic O Islam
O Christian O Buddhism
O Protestant O Others, _______
Quantitative data – are data gathered from numerical responses.

Example:
3. Numbers of building permits issued each month in Malolos City.
4. Length of time to solve a problem set.

Example 3 and 4 yields data that numerical. The first one may be
considered discrete, and the second can be considered continuous.
Discrete data – are numerical data that can be counted and has a certain
number of values such as number of students in a class, number of cars in the
parking area, number of babies born per day and a lot more.
Continuous data – are numerical responses that arise from a measuring
process such a height, weight, ages and temperature.
 The values of the discrete data takes values that the exact integers, while
the continuous data can never be exact no matter what care we exercise in
measuring them.
Moreover, we could also describe the resulting data in accordance to the
level of measurement attained. Exactly data are “measured” in some form. The
four widely recognized levels of measurements are the following.

Measurements Scales

1. Nominal scale – data obtained from a categorical response and the data
are merely classified into various distinct categories in which no ordering is
implied. It is merely used to differentiate classes or categories for purely
classification or identification purposes.

For instance, the respondents in a survey may be categorized as males or

females. The two group formed can be identified by using numbers like 1
for male group and for female group or vice versa. Since these numbers are
merely used for identification purposes, no meaning can be attached to the
magnitude or size of such numbers. The assignment of these numbers is
arbitrary. Other examples of the use of nominal measurement are the
assignment of numbers to basketball players, houses, office rooms, and
telephones.
Example:

2. Ordinal scale – data obtained from a categorical response and the data are
classified into distinct categories in which ordering is implied. Ordinal scales do not
only classify but also order classes. Ordinal measurement which is expressed in
ranks is possible if different degrees of an attribute or properly are present.
Examples of ordinal measurements are the ranks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 given by the judges
to the five finalists in a beauty contest. With ordinal measurement, we can talk of
“less than” or “greater than” in terms of the attribute in question:; hence we say
that ordinal measurement can order classes.

Example:
3. Interval scale – it is where the difference between 2 variables is meaningful.
The interval scale is characterized by a constant or equal interval between the
values of the scale. This means the difference between any two values is
equivalent to the difference between any two adjacent values of an interval scale.

4. Ratio scale – numerical data that are measurement of length. Ratio

measurement differs from interval measurement only in one aspect; it has as true
zero which indicates a total absence of the property being measured. Examples
are length (0 length means no length at all), age, and number of children in a family.
If Michelle is 160 cm tall and Kristine is 80 cm tall we can say that Michelle is twice
as taller than Kristine. With ratio measurements, multiplication and division have
meanings. Another example a person who is 120 lbs. is twice as heavier as 60 lbs.
person.

Example: