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Math 146 Notes. Section 1.1: What is Statistics?


Objectives for this section: You should be able to

• Correctly use the following vocabulary: Statistics, population, census, sample, individual,
variable, qualitative variable, quantitative variable, discrete data, continuous data, mean,
proportion, parameter
• Identify examples of the terms above from problems given
• Give your own examples of the terms above

A BUNCH OF DEFINITIONS
___________________: The study of how to collect and interpret data about a group. We use statistics
to _________________ the groups and to ____________________________!

The group is called a _________________________.


______________________: Collect data for every member (or ______________________) of
the population.
PROS:
CONS:
______________________: Collect data from just some individuals, and generalize to whole
population
When we collect data from individuals in our sample, this is called a _________________ or
______________.
Ex #1: We want to know the most popular major at GRC. How would we find this info using…
A census?

A sample?

(How do we find a sample, anyway?? We find out in section 1.2!)

The data you collect from each individual is the _______________________.


Ex #2: In the example above, the variable is the ____________________.
To identify the variable, ask yourself:
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Try This: Suppose I want to know what proportion (or percentage) of GRC 146 students this quarter
wear glasses. Identify the following:

a) Population:
b) Variable:

Statistics is a very power tool for ___________________________________.

- The governor of WA state wants to know how Washington residents think we should combat
gun violence, so the governor can make good decisions about what laws to advocate for. What’s
one way the governor can find out this information?
_____________________________________________________________
- The chair of the GRC math division wants to know what times of day people prefer to take
classes, online or in person, and how many days a week, in order to figure out how make the
best schedule of math classes. What’s a way the chair can get this info?
_____________________________________________________________
- You want to know whether the new Ryan Reynolds movie is worth watching. What’s a way that
you can find out what lots of people think of it?
_____________________________________________________________
- A person interested in buying a particular car wants to know how often cars like it are stolen.
What’s a place they can find the answer to that information?
_____________________________________________________________
- Try this: What’s an example of a statistical question you might want to know the answer to in
order to make a decision?

PARAMETERS AND STATISTICS


_______________________: A number 𝜎 (sigma) that describes a population.

Ex: We want to know the proportion of all 146 students this quarter who wear glasses to class.
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How could we find this number?

_______________________: A number 𝑠 that describes/is calculated from a sample.

Exercise: Let’s use our class as a sample.

a) How many students are wearing glasses in our class today? ____________________
b) How many students are in class today? (This is our sample size)
__________________________
c) What proportion of students are wearing glasses in our class today? 𝑠 =
_________________. We can also write this as a percent:
This number is our _________________________________
d) Is this the same as our population parameter? __________________
e) What does this tell us about our population parameter? Does it tell us anything?

NOTE: In this class we mainly worry about two kinds of parameters:

1. _____________________: a number computed by taking the average of a quantitative variable


2. _____________________: a number between 0 and 1, computed from asking a yes/no question
(like “Do you wear glasses?”)

Try This: Print-O-Matic would like to estimate the mean salary of their 100 employees. To accomplish
this, they collect the salary of 19 employees. Identify each of the following for this situation.

Variable: _________________________________________________
Population: _________________________________________________
Sample: _________________________________________________
Parameter: _________________________________________________

QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE VARIABLES


Quantitative (or numerical) variable: When the data you collect about an individual is:
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Qualitative (or categorical) variable: When the data you collect about an individual is:

Our GRC majors and glasses examples both have which kind of variable? ____________________

Ex #3: I want to know how many pets each 146 student has.

The variable is: __________________

Is this variable qualitative or quantitative? ___________________________

Try This: Suppose our population is people who went to the emergency room at Auburn MultiCare in
2023.

a) What is an example of a qualitative variable we could study about this population?

b) What’s a quantitative variable we could study?

DISCRETE AND CONTINUOUS DATA

Discrete numerical data: Data that can be ___________________.

Ex #4:

Continuous numerical data: Data that can ____________________.

Ex #5:
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Try This: Find another example of:

a) Discrete data
b) Continuous data

Math 146 Notes. Section 1.2: Sampling Methods


Objectives for this section: You should be able to

• Explain, compare, and contrast the following sample methods: simple random sample, stratified
sample, cluster sample, systematic sample, convenience sample
• Identify which sampling method has been used in a given problem

TWO BIG QUESTIONS:

a)
b)

SAMPLING METHODS
1. ____________________________________ of size n: a sample that is selected from a
population in such a way that every member of population has an equal chance of being
selected. Also, every possible sample of size n is equally likely to be selected.
Ex #6:

Non-examples:

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE:

When is this a good method to use?:

2. ____________________________________: You randomly choose a starting place in a list and


select ever kth individual for your sample.
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Ex #7:

When is this a good method to use?:


3. ____________________________________: You pick a group of individuals that’s easy to poll.
Ex #8:

When is this a good method to use?:

4. ____________________________________: You break the population into groups, and select a


simple random sample from EACH group
Ex #9:

When is this a good method to use?:

5. ____________________________________: You break the population into clusters, and you


select a simple random sample OF THE CLUSTERS and poll everyone in those clusters.
Ex #10:

When is this a good method to use?:

NOTE: It’s really easy to get stratified and cluster sampling confused! Remember: in stratified
sampling, we poll ____________ of the individuals in ___________ of the groups, and in cluster
sampling, we poll ____________ of the individuals in ___________ of the groups.

Question: If we surveyed ALL the individuals in a population, what would that method be called?
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Math 146 Notes. Section 1.3 Experimental Design


Objectives for this section: You should be able to:

• Explain the difference between experiments and observational studies


• Determine whether a given scenario describes an experiment or an observational study
• Explain the pros and cons of each type.

EXPERIMENTS vs OBSERVATIONAL STUDIES


________________________________: you collect data by watching/observation, but DON’T change
anything.
Ex #11:

What are the strengths of this approach?

What are the weaknesses?

________________________________: you change a variable/element to see how it affects the sample


Ex #12:

What are the strengths of this approach?

What are the weaknesses?

Math 146 Notes. Section 1.4 How Not To Do Statistics


Objectives for this section: You should be able to:

• Explain the following terms, and identify them in a given scenario: lurking or confounding
variable, overgeneralization, cause and effect, sampling error, nonsampling error, surveys,
leading questions, non-response, voluntary response
• Identify potential statistical problems or biases in a scenario

Scenario 1: Researchers have found that people who drink alcohol are more likely to get lung cancer
than people who don’t drink. Does this mean alcohol causes lung cancer?
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Researchers have also found:

a) People who drink heavily also tend to be smokers. [Link]


b) Certain genes that are associated with alcoholism are also associated with cancer, including lung
cancer. [Link]

When we are trying to find a relationship between two variables, but there are other factors we’re not
considering that affect our results, these factors are called ___________________________________ or
___________________________________. In this case, both smoking and genetic predisposition are
confounding variables.

How to fix/prevent this problem?

IN GENERAL:

PLEASE NOTE: If you think a study has a ________________________, you must be able to
_______________ it. You can’t just say, “Well, maybe it has one”!!

Scenario 2: A study randomly divides a group of women between the ages of 25-30 into two groups. The
researchers have one group take a daily 15-minute walk, and the second group does not take a walk.
After two months, the researchers find the group of women that took a walk has improved blood
pressure, and the group that didn’t have the same blood pressure as before. Headline of newspaper
article on the study: “Walking 15 minutes daily improves your blood pressure, study finds.” What’s
wrong with this headline?
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If we take the results from a narrow group of individuals (like ______________________) and apply
them to a much broader group of people (like ______________________), this is called
_______________________. NOTE: This is different from generalizing from a small NUMBER to a large
NUMBER.

How to fix/prevent this problem?

IN GENERAL:

Scenario 3: Two political polling companies conducted surveys to determine support for a new school
levy.

Poll #1: “Do you support a new levy to help fund art and science classes in our district?” 67% said yes.

Poll #2: “Do you support a new school levy that increases your property taxes?” 45% said yes.

Assume the two polls were taken using the same sampling methods. Why are these responses so
different?

When a survey is phrased with a leading question, this can cause _______________________.

How to fix/prevent this problem?

Scenario 4: In order to determine whether Tacoma residents support a downtown revitalization project,
a survey was conducted. It was determined that 200 people would be interviewed, where 50 were
downtown business owners, 50 were people who worked in a downtown office, and 100 were people
shopping downtown. A surveyor stood on a corner in downtown and surveyed people until he had
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surveyed 50 downtown business owners, 50 downtown workers and 100 downtown shoppers. 74%
were in favor of the project, 18 % were opposed, and 8% had no opinion.

What was the population was this survey intended to study?

What population is the sample actually representative of?

When our sampling method gives us a non-representative sample, that is called


___________________________ or a __________________________.

How to fix/prevent this problem?

Scenario 5: I want to know if I should change the time of my office hour from 3pm to 9am. I send out a
survey to my class of 33 students. 5 students respond, and 4 of them say they want me to change the
time. Does this mean I should change the time of my office hour?

When we only get a response from a very small percentage of our sample, we call this
______________________________.

How to fix/prevent this problem?


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Scenario 6: In his newsletter, the governor asks WA state residents to fill out a poll telling him whether
he should support building a new commercial airport near Enumclaw. 73% of respondents said he
should not support the airport. Do these results give the governor a good picture of how WA residents
feel about the airport proposal?

When people volunteer themselves for a survey, this introduces _____________________________.

How to fix/prevent this problem?

BIG TAKEAWAY: _______________________________________________________. However, that


doesn’t mean we can’t use them to learn things! How can we tell when to trust a statistical conclusion?

1. Check the ____________________________. Is every individual _______________________ to


be selected? Does the sample represent the __________________ well? Are there any obvious
____________ in the sampling method?
2. Does the study or article’s ________________________ match the ___________________?
Often the problem is in the reporting, NOT the math!

In conclusion, statisticians need to _______________________________ and be careful not to


______________________________ their results.

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