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Statistics - Handouts 1

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29 views6 pages

Statistics - Handouts 1

Uploaded by

abel
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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STATISTICS

Statistics is a collection of methods for collecting, displaying, analyzing, and drawing


conclusions from data.

Statistics is the science of collecting, organizing, presenting, analyzing, and


interpreting data to assist in making more effective decisions

Statistics is a mathematical body of science that pertains to the collection, analysis,


interpretation or explanation, and presentation of data, or as a branch of mathematics.
Some consider statistics to be a distinct mathematical science rather than a branch of
mathematics.

Types of statistics:

 Descriptive statistics – Methods of organizing, summarizing, and presenting


data in an informative way

- summarizes data from a sample using indexes such as the


mean or standard deviation

 Inferential statistics – The methods used to determine something about a


population on the basis of a sample

- draws conclusions from data that are subject to random


variation (e.g., observational errors, sampling variation.

Statistical data

 The collection of data that are relevant to the problem being studied is commonly
the most difficult, expensive, and time-consuming part of the entire research
project.

 Statistical data are usually obtained by counting or measuring items.

 Primary data are collected specifically for the analysis desired

 Secondary data have already been compiled and are available for
statistical analysis

Statistical data are usually obtained by counting or measuring items. Most data can be
put into the following categories:

 Qualitative data are measurements that each fail into one of several categories.
(hair color, ethnic groups and other attributes of the population)
Qualitative data are generally described by words or letters. They are not as
widely used as quantitative data because many numerical techniques do not
apply to the qualitative data. For example, it does not make sense to find an
average hair color or blood type.

Qualitative data can be separated into two subgroups:

 dichotomic (if it takes the form of a word with two options (gender - male
or female)

 polynomic (if it takes the form of a word with more than two options
(education - primary school, secondary school and university).

 Quantitative data are observations that are measured on a numerical scale


(distance traveled to college, number of children in a family, etc.)

Quantitative data are always numbers and are the result of counting or
measuring attributes of a population.

Quantitative data can be separated into two subgroups:

 discrete (if it is the result of counting (the number of students of a given


ethnic group in a class, the number of books on a shelf, ...)

 continuous (if it is the result of measuring (distance traveled, weight of


luggage, …)

Continuous
Amount of income tax paid,
weight of a student
Types of Data

There are different types of data depending on the nature of the data or how the data
have been measured and gathered.

Quantitative and Qualitative

Quantitative data are numerical measurements expressed in terms of numbers and the
numbers stand for specific values. They are not mere labels.
Example
• Balance at a bank $4344.2
• Number of students in a class 75
• Height of a person 1.3m

Quantitative data can be Discrete and continuous. Discrete data is data relating to
“countable variables.” The data is mainly in the form of integers. Examples: 2 cars,
5 people, 272 tablets of soap.

Continuous data is data, which is part of a range. The user simply decides on a limit.
Items whose data is normally continuous include Age, Time, Length, Height, Weight.
Continuous data is characterized by the presence of fractions in its measurement,
although some will be expressed as whole numbers for example:
• The age of a child: 5.7 years
• The distance between towns: 80 km
• A bag of maize 50 kg

Qualitative data comprises labels, opinions or expressions of conclusions. As opposed


to quantitative data which is in numeric form, qualitative data is expressed by means of
a natural language descriptions. Sometimes qualitative data is referred to as
"categorical" data.

Example
! Today’s weather: “bad”
! Level of attendance: “high”
! Comment on Project: “successful”
! Expressions of size: “small, medium and large”
!Sociologist conclusion: “poverty fuels spread of HIV”

Note that use of numbers in data does not necessarily make that data qua
ntitative for example:
! The number at the back of a football player: 11
! Scores representing opinions: 1 (poor), 5 (Excellent)
! Storm category 5 (bad)
The numbers above are only labels (much as some can be described as some form of
ranking). These numbers can be changed without changing the meaning or what it
represents.
Numerical scale / Levels of measurement:

1. Nominal – consist of categories in each of which the number of respective


observations is recorded. The categories are in no logical order and have no
particular relationship. The categories are said to be mutually exclusive since
an individual, object, or measurement can be included in only one of them.

A pie chart displays groups of nominal


variables (i.e. categories).

Nominal is from the Latin nomalis,


which means “pertaining to names”.
It’s another name for a category.

Examples:

 Gender: Male, Female, Other.


 Hair Color: Brown, Black, Blonde, Red, Other.
 Type of living accommodation: House, Apartment, Trailer, Other.
 Genotype: Bb, bb, BB, bB.
 Religious preference: Buddhist, Mormon, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Other.
2. Ordinal – contain more information. Consists of distinct categories in which order
is implied. Values in one category are larger or smaller than values in other
categories (e.g. rating-excelent, good, fair, poor)
The ordinal scale classifies according to rank.

Ordinal means in order. Includes “First,” “second” and “ninety ninth.”


Examples:

 High school class ranking: 1st, 9th, 87th…


 Socioeconomic status: poor, middle class, rich.
 The Likert Scale: strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree.
 Level of Agreement: yes, maybe, no.
 Time of Day: dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night.
 Political Orientation: left, center, right.

3. Interval – is a set of numerical measurements in which the distance between


numbers is of a known, sonstant size.

Interval has values of equal intervals that mean something. For example, a
thermometer might have intervals of ten degrees.

Examples:

 Celsius Temperature.
 Fahrenheit Temperature.
 IQ (intelligence scale).
 SAT scores.
 Time on a clock with hands.
4. Ratio – consists of numerical measurements where the distance between
numbers is of a known, constant size, in addition, there is a nonarbitrary zero
point.

Weight is measured on the ratio scale.

Ratio is exactly the same as the interval scale except


that the zero on the scale means: “does not exist”.
For example, a weight of zero doesn’t exist; an age of zero doesn’t exist. On the other
hand, temperature is not a ratio scale, because zero exists (i.e. zero on the Celsius
scale is just the freezing point; it doesn’t mean that water ceases to exist).

Examples:

 Age.*
 Weight.
 Height.
 Sales Figures.
 Ruler measurements.
 Income earned in a week.
 Years of education.
 Number of children.

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