Chapter 1.
Basic conceptions
in statistics
Chapter 1 - Content
• 1.1 What is statistics? The goal of statistics.
• 1.2 Basis conceptions in statistics.
• 1.3 Classification of data and variables
• 1.4 Descriptive statistics and statistical inference.
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What is statistics?
Statistics can refer to the science of collecting,
analyzing, presenting and interpreting data as
well as of making decisions based on such
analyses.
The goal of statistics is to gain understanding
from data.
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1.2 Basic conceptions in statistics
In this part, we are going to learn some conceptions:
• 1. Population,
• 2. Sample,
• 3. Element,
• 4. Variable,
• 5. Measurement (observed value) and
observation.
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Population and Sample -1
Population: is an entire group of individuals or
elements or items/things that you want to study.
Sample: is a subset of elements that you will
choose from the population.
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Population and Sample -2
Example 1:
Mrs. Smith wants to do a statistical analysis
on students' final examination scores in her math
class for the past year.
Should she consider her data to be a
population or sample?
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Population and Sample -3
Example 2:
A group of students surveys 100 students from
their freshman class to determine the number of pets
in each student's household.
The group plans to compute statistical findings
on their data and generalize these findings to the
homes of all freshmen students.
Should the group consider their data to be a
population dataset or a sample dataset?
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Population and Sample -4
Example 3: Identify each of the following data
sets as either a population or a sample.
The grade point averages (GPAs) of all students at a
college.
The GPAs of a randomly selected group of students on
a college campus.
The ages of the nine Supreme Court Justices of the
United States on January 1, 1842.
The gender of every second customer who enters a
movie theater.
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Population and Sample -5
A group of 25 patients selected to test a new drug.
Total items produced on a machine for each year from
1995 to 2012.
Yearly expenditures on clothes for 50 persons.
Number of houses sold by each of the 10 employees
of a real estate agency during 2012.
Salaries of CEOs of all companies in New York City.
Five hundred houses selected from a city.
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Population and Sample -6
Example 4: Determine the population and
sample in following studies.
Study #1: We want to know what is the percentage
of defective items/products (things) produced from a
factory.
Study #2: We also want to know the average weight
of products (10,000) produced at a factory.
Study #3: What is the mean average expense
(expenditure) of students per month who are in this
group?
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Element, Observations, and Variables -1
Element (member) of a sample (or population) is specific
object (for example, a person, item, firm, state, or conntry)
about which the information is collected.
Variable is a characteristic of interest for the
element.
Measurement: A measurement is defined as the value of
a variable for an element.
Observation: The set of measurements of variable(s)
for an element.
In statistics, an observation is simply one occurrence of
something you’re measuring.
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Element, Variable, measurement and, Observation -2
Example 1: Determine a variable, element, and
Observation.
?)
Names
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Element, Variable, measurement and,
Observation -3
Example 2: The following table lists the number of
billionaires in eight countries as of February 2011, as
reported in The New York Times of July 27, 2011.
?)
Names
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Element, Variable, measurement and,
Observation -4
Question: Refer to the data set above,
a/ What is the variable for this dataset? Determine the name
of variable.
b/ How many observations are in this data set? ?)
Names
c/ How many elements does this data set contain?
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Element, Observations, and Variables -5
Example 3: For example, in the following dataset
there are 15 observations and 3 variables:
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Element, Observations, and Variables -6
Example: The first observation has the following
values for the three variables:
•Weight: 290 pounds, Length: 30 inches, Region: East
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1.3 Types of data/variables -1
A variable may be classified as quantitative or
qualitative (categorical).
A qualitative (categorical) variable: a variable that
can not be measured on mumerical value, but it can
be classified into names or lables (non-numeric
categories).The data collected on such a variable
are called categorical data.
A quatitative variable: a variable that can be measured
mumerically value and these numerics present a
measurable quantity (refer to “how much” or
“how many”).
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1.3 Types of variables -2
Example: Indicate which of the following variables are
quantitative and which are qualitative (categorical).
a/ Number of persons in a family.
b/ Color of a car.
c/ Marital status of a person
d/ Time to commute from home to school
e/ The amount of time a student spent studying for an exam.
f/ The amount of rain last year in 30 cities.
g/ The arrival status of an airline flight ( early, on time, late,
canceled) at an airport.
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1.3 Types of variables -3
Indicate which of the following variables are
quantitative and which are qualitative.
h/ A person’s blood type.
i/ Women’s favorite TV programs.
l/ Salaries of football players.
m/ Number of pets owned by families.
n/ Favorite breed of dog for each of 20 persons.
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1.4 Descriptive statistics and statistical
inference
• Most of the statistical information in newspapers,
magazines, company reports, and other publications
consists of data that are summarized and presented in a
form that is easy to understand.
• Such summaries of data, which may be tabular,
graphical, or numerical, are referred to as descriptive
statistics.
• The role of descriptive statistics is to reduce the
information to manageable proportions; it is to
summarize data in a meaningful way.
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Descriptive Statistics -1
• Descriptive statistics consists of methods for
organizing, displaying, and describing data by
using tables, graphs, and summary measures.
• A simple example is a frequency table. A
frequency table counts the number of subjects
that have a particular attribute.
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Descriptive Statistics -2
• Example: Data from a sample of 50 Soft Drink
Purchases given in the table.
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Descriptive Statistics -2
• Example: Frequency Distribution of Soft Drink
Purchases
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Descriptive Statistics -3
• Bar Graph of Soft Drink Purchases
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Inferential Statistics
Inferential statistics consists of methods that use
sample results to help make decisions or predictions
about a population.
Example:
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Process of Statistical Inference
1. Population
consists of all bulbs
Manufactured with 2. A sample of 200
the new filament. bulbs is manufactured
Average lifetime is with the new filament.
unknown.
4. The sample average 3. The sample data
provide a sample
is used to estimate the average parts cost
population average. of 76 hours per bulb.
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End of Chapter 1
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