VARIABLE – is any characteristic or fundamental quantity that can be measured,
Basic Terms in Statistics
STATISTICS – is a branch of Mathematics that deals with scientific COLLECTION,
ORGANIZATION, PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS, and INTERPRETATION of numerical
data to obtain useful and meaningful information.
COLLECTION of data – refers to the process obtaining information.
ORGANIZATION of data – refers to ascertaining manner of presenting the data into
tables, graphs, or charts so that logical and statistical can be drawn from the collected
measurement.
ANALYSIS of data – refers to the process of extracting relevant information from the
given data which numerical description can be formulated.
INTERPRETATION of data – refers to the task of drawing conclusion from the
analyze data.
Two areas of Statistics
1. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTIC – deals with the collection, organization, and
presentation of data to be able to draw valid conclusions about the sample
under investigation.
2. INFERENTIAL STATISTIC – is concerned with making predictions or
inferences about a population using a sample.
Types of Data
1. QUANTITATIVE DATA – refers to the numerical information obtained from
counting or measuring, that can be manipulated by any fundamental
operation.
Example: Age, IQ scores, height, weight, income
2. QUALITATIVE DATA – refers to the descriptive attributes that cannot be
subjected to mathematical operations.
Example: Gender, Citizenship, Religion, Educational attainment
POPULATION – refers to the totality of all element or person for which one has an
interest at particular time.
SAMPLE – is a part taken from a population determined by sampling procedure.
counted, or categorized.
 DISCRETE Variable – is a variable that can be obtained by counting.
Example: Number of a cellphone in the company, Number of computers in
the lab
 CONTINUOS Variable – is a variable that can be obtained by measuring
objects or attributes.
Example: The weight of students, The area of a classroom
Levels of Measurement
 NOMINAL level of measurement – is characterized by names, labels to
various categories with no implied of ordering or ranking.
Examples: gender, religion, race, civil status, sports
 ORDINAL level of measurement – classifies data into categories that can be
ranked or ordered, but the interval between measurements is not
meaningful.
Examples: Size of clothes (small, medium, large), the customer satisfaction
survey rating (needs improvement, good, very good)
 INTERVAL level of measurement – has meaningful interval between
measurements but there is no true zero.
Example: 78 degrees and 79 degrees, it has meaningful difference of 1
degree in each unit. However, 0 degrees does not mean no heat.
 RATIO level of measurement – is the highest level of measurement. Ratios
between measurements as well as intervals are meaningful because there is
a true zero.
Example: If Mel has 200 pesos and Tania has 600 pesos, then we can say
that Tania has three times more money than Mel. If Lorna has zero money in
her pocket, then this implies the absence of money.