Week 1 Lecture 1:The building blocks of statistics What is statistics used for? What is its purpose? Statistics is used to collect, analyze and communicate information or data Data is not just numbers, Data is numbers in contextNumber 1 Rule of Statistics: READ CAREFULLY. Make sure to read directions and questions carefully. Variation If data has no variation then it is not useful Data Observable and recordable information Two types of data: numerical and non-numeric(categorical) We ask these questions about datao Who or what is measured?o What variables are measured?o How were variables measured? (circumstances at the time of measure)o What are the units of measurement? o How was the data collected?o Where was the data collected?o Why was the data collected?Variable The characteristics of something that can vary or changeo Examples :gender or population of a city) Two types of variableso Numerical variables-quantities such as age (numbers that can be added and mathematically applied)o Categorical variable-other data such as language, your major, or gender (can also be numbers such as an identification number or zip code. However these numbers cant be added to produce a mathematically applicable value. It wouldn’t make sense to add zip codes together because the sum wouldn’t represent anything )Population vs Sample Populationo The population is all information observable or unobservableo The goal of statistics is to obtain information about the population Sampleo Small selection from the population o Helps us examine the population more easily (without having to examine a large population)Categorical with 2 Categories This is only used when using coding “0” represents no or not and “1” represents yes Only works when there are two values o For example: True or falseTwo Way Tablestwo way tables show the combination of different categories and how often each combination occurs frequency: number of times the values/combination is
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