Basic Concepts of Statistical Studies

by
Dr. Rajesh Moharana

Department of Mathematics
School of Advanced Sciences
Vellore Institute of Technology
Vellore, India

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Basic Concepts of Statistical Studies
Statistics is the branch of science where we plan, gather and analyze
information about a particular collection of individuals or objects under
investigation.
In this study, we discuss the basic concepts of population, sample,
variables, parameters and how we go through the usual steps to process
the information.

Example 1: You want to start a new business (may be an expensive

car dealership) and hence you want to know the average household
income per year in your primary business region (which is essential for
sustaining your business). A high average household income usually
indicates a bright prospect for your new business.
Example 2: You are a part of an anti-smoking campaign in your
school. You are concerned about the general health of your fellow
students and want to know what percentage of the students are regular
smokers.

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Conti...

Example 3: As a quality control expert you want to know the

proportion of good computer chips produced by a manufacturing unit.

Example 4: Suppose you are working as a consultant for a telephone

company and want to find out the proportion of households in a
particular state having mobile phones.

Example 5: A university decides to increase the tuition fee from

the next academic year. The students’ union wants to know what
percentage of students support the fee hike.

Note that, for each of the above problems, there is a collection of indi-
viduals or a group of items under study. This is called a population.

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Population: A population is a collection of all distinct individuals or

objects or items under study. The number of entities in a population,
called the population size.
I In Example 1, you are interested in the average income of households
in your primary business region. So, the collection of households in your
primary business region is the population.
I In Example 2, the population under study is the collection of enrolled
students (in a particular semester) since you want to conduct your study
on them.
I In Example 3, the population is the collection of all computer
chips produced by the manufacturing unit. You then want to see what
percentage of this population is good.

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I In Example 4, the population consists of all the households in

the particular state. You want to determine the proportion of this
population of this population having mobile phone(s).
I In Example 5, the students’ union wants to know what per-
centage of the total number of students (enrolled in the current
semester) supporting the tuition fee hike. Hence, the population is the
collection of all students enrolled in the current semester in the university.

Variable: Once a population is fixed, we then want to study a charac-

teristic of the individuals (or objects or items) in the population. This
individual characteristic is called a variable (value of which can vary from
individual to individual, or from one object to another within the popu-
lation).

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The variable in:

I Example 1, is the income of house hold;

I Example 2, is the smoking habit of a student;

I Example 3, is the quality of a computer chip;

I Example 4, is the ownership of mobile phone(s) by a household;

I Example 5, is the opinion of a student regarding fee hike.

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Most of the variables can be classified in two broad categories:

(i) Categorical (or qualitative) variable: {If it assigns a categorical

(non-numerical) value to each individual or object. Examples: gender,
nationality, etc.}

(ii) Quantitative variable: { If it assigns a numerical value to each indi-

vidual or object. Examples: age, income, height, etc.}

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I InExample 1, income of house hold is a quantitative variable.

I In Example 2, smoking habit of a student is a categorical variable

(since a person is either a smoker or a nonsmoker).

I In Example 3, quality of a computer chip is a categorical variable

(since chip is classified as either good or bad).

I In Example 4, ownership of mobile phone(s) is a categorical variable

(since a household either owns or does not own).

I In Example 5, opinion of a student is a categorical variable (since a

student either favours or does not favour.

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Parameter: A summary value of the variable for the population is called

a parameter. In a statistical study we are interested in a parameter since
often it gives a fairly good idea about the population.

In Example 1, the average annual household income is our

parameter of interest.
In Example 2, the proportion of regular smokers in the population
is a parameter of interest.
In Example 3, the percentage of good computer chips in the
population is a parameter of interest.
In Example 4, the percentage of households having mobile phones
is a parameter of interest.
In Example 5, the percentage of students opposing the fee hike is
a parameter of interest for the students’s union.

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A variable is a characteristic of an individual or object, and a parameter

is a characteristic of the population (with respect to a variable).

Sample: A sample is a part of a population and the sample size is

denoted by n. A sample should be a representative of the population.

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Basic Steps in a Statistical Study

For any statistical study, there are some basic steps to be followed once
we draw a sample. These are:
Step 1: Gather first-hand information from the sample and this is
called the raw data.
Step 2: Tabular representation of the raw data, i.e., represent the
raw data in a table.
Step 3: Pictorial representation of the data, i.e., draw diagrams
with the organized data in a table.
Step 4: Numerically summarize the data, i.e., describe the entire
data set with some key numbers.
Step 5: Analyze the data using mathematical formulae.
Step 6: Draw the final inference or conclusion about the
population under study.

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Summarizing a raw data set or an organized data set

There are two basic properties of a quantitative data set that are com-
monly studied. These are central tendency and variability (or dispersion).

Central Tendency: Quite often it is found that the entries in data set
cluster around a central (or middle) value. This behavior of the data set
is called the central tendency. The main Challenge is to locate a central
value around which the clustering takes place.

Three standard methods to measure the location of central tendency are:

Mean
Median
Mode

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Variability or Dispersion: Variability or dispersion of data set means

the amount of discrepancies among the data entries. There are several
ways to measure dispersion or variability in a data set and these are:
Range
Quartile deviation
Variance
Standard deviation

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References

Vijay K. Rohatgi and A.K. Md. Ehsanes Saleh (2003)

An Introduction to Probability and Statistics
Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics
Kapoor, V.K. and Gupta, S.C., (1980)
Fundamentals of Mathematical Statistics
Sultan Chand & Sons
Ronald E. Walpole, Raymond H. Myers, Sharon L. Myers and Keying Ye
(2012)
Probability & Statistics for Engineers & Scientists
Pearson Education
T Veerarajan (2017)
Probability - Statistics and Random Processes
McGraw Hill Education
B S Grewal (2007)
Higher Engineering Mathematics
Khanna

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 Thank You

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