Dr.

Win Khaing
Assistant Lecturer
Department of P & SM
University of Medicine, Mandalay 1
 Data is a collection of items of information
 Data is the raw material of statistics
Statistical
 Data Analysis
Information
 Define as numbers
 two kinds of numbers
 Measurement (BP, Height, Weight)

 Counting (no. of children, no. of visit)

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 Variables are properties or characteristics of
some event, object, or person that can take
on different values or amounts.
 numbers
 Age = 15, 20, 25,30,….years
 Length = 100, 110, 115, 115.5, 120.7, … cm
 non-numerical
 Sex = Male, Female
 Education = Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade3, …
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 Variables

Age Sex Education Occupation

35 Male Grade 8 Farmer

30 Female Grade 4 Housewife

12 Male Grade 5 Student

Datum 15 Male Grade 8 Student Data
10 Female Grade 4 Student

25 Female Grade 8 Officer

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 QUALITATIVE VARIABLES

 QUANTITATIVE VARIABLES

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 Some characteristics which cannot be

measured in terms of amount, but could be

categorized  CATEGORICAL VARIABLES

 either NOMINAL or ORDINAL

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 the categories are not ordered but simply

have names

 blood groups : O, A, AB, B

 marital status : married, single, widowed, etc.

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 the categories are ordered in some way
 degree of pain : severe, moderate, mild

 reaction to some statement : strongly disagree,

disagree, agree, strongly agree.

 income : high, middle, low

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 categorical variable is BINARY or
DICHOTOMOUS when there are only two
possible categories
 “Yes/No”

 “Dead/Alive”

 “have disease/does not have disease”

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 Those variables which could be expressed in
terms of amount or which can be measured
 are expressed in numbers  NUMERICAL
VARIABLES
 can subdivide into two types: DISCRETE or
CONTINUOUS

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 variable can only take certain whole
numerical values
 numbers of child in a family,

 numbers of attacks of asthma per week,

 number of visits to a GP in a year

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 when there is no limitation on the value that
the variable can (in theory) take
 Diastolic Blood pressure (80, 81, 82, 85, 90,…)

 Height in centimeters (2.5 cm or 2.546 cm or

2.543216 cm)
 Temperature in degrees Celsius (37.20C or
37.199990C)
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Quantitative Qualitative
(Continuous) (Nominal)

DBP > 90 mmHg Hypertension

DBP < 90 mmHg Normotension

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Quantitative Qualitative
(Continuous) (Ordinal)

Height • Short
• Average
• Tall

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Quantitative Qualitative

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 for descriptive purposes
 to summarize variables
 not for statistical analysis
 reduces the amount of information available
 have more power – for a continuous variable than
the corresponding nominal one
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 A dependent variable is what you measure in
the experiment and what is affected during the
experiment
 The dependent variable responds to the
independent variable.
 It is called dependent because it "depends" on
the independent variable.
 sometimes called outcome variable or
response variable
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 the variable you have control over, what you
can choose and manipulate.
 It is usually what you think will affect the
dependent variable
 In some cases, you may not be able to
manipulate the independent variable
 sometime called predictor variable or
explanatory variable
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 Dependent Independent
Variable Variable
• Heart Rate • Stress
• Age

You can directly manipulate stress levels in your human

subjects and measure how those stress levels change heart
rate, but you can’t manipulate the age
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 Dependent Independent
Research Question
Variable Variable

Is there a relationship
between drinking beer Happiness Beer
and happiness?

Is there a relationship
between hot peppers
Heartburn hot peppers
on pizza and
heartburn?

Does fertilizer make a growth of the plant

amount of fertilizer
plant grow bigger? measured by its height
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 Dependent Independent
Research Question
Variable Variable
Does heating a cup of
amount of sugar that temperature of the
water allow it to
dissolves completely water
dissolve more sugar?
Does the use of
oxygen have an effect amount of oxygen
level of chest pain
on a person’s level of administered
chest pain?
 percentage of total
The relationship of fat in the diet
dietary fat  percentage of
incidence of ischemic
consumption and the saturated fat
stroke
development of  percentage of
ischemic stroke monounsaturated
fat. 24
1 Red
2 Blue
3 Green
4 Yellow

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 Measurement may be defined as the

assignment of numbers to objects or events

according to a set of rules

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 Nominal scale

 Ordinal scale

 Interval scale

 Ratio scale

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 Many objects have characteristics that differ
in kind only.
 Can’t arrange them in meaningful order
 They differ in kind only, and not in any
quantitative sense.
 It is the lowest measurement scale.
 Examples - occupation, gender, race,
nationality, and religion
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 1 Red
2 Blue
3 Green
4 Yellow

 A number could be assigned to Nominal scale

 The number serves only to identify name
 1 = male 2 = Female
 a value of 2 does not indicated a higher score
than a value of 1.
 1 and 2 are simply names, or labels, that have
been assigned to each group
 certain statistical concepts are meaningless for
nominal data.
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 Whenever observations are not only different
from category to category but can be
arranged in a meaningful order – i.e., rank
ordered
 Examples are –
 socioeconomic status : Low, Medium, High
 the intelligence of children : above average,
average, below average
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 Limitation - we cannot make any inference
about the degree/distance of difference
between values on the scale.
 high SE status is richer than the medium SE
status, we do not know whether high SE
status has 100 kyats more or 100,000 kyats
more

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 Can be ordered and equal differences
between scale values have equal meaning.

56 57 58 59 60 114 115 116 117 118

3 units 3 units

 Best example - Temperature

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 Limitation - ratios of scale values have no
meaning
 such a scale has an arbitrary zero point, one
that does not really represent a zero
quantity

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 °F
°C
32.22
90
26.67
80
Equal 21.11
70
difference 15.56
60 twice the value ~ Six times
50
10
4.44
40
-1.11
30
-6.67
20
-12.22
10
-17.78
0
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 26.7 C 80 F
 6.1 2
4.4 C 40 F

not at the true zero point representing zero temperature

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 highest level of scale of measurement
 ordered sequence property
 ratios of its values do have meaning, and
equal ratios have equal meaning due to the
presence of a genuine zero point on the scale
 Example – length, weight, height
37
 cm
inch
35.433
90
31.496
80
Equal 27.559
70
difference 23.622
60 2 times 2 times
19.685
50
15.748
40
11.811
30
7.874
20
3.937
10
00
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80 cm
2 31.496 inches
2
40 cm
15.748 inches

0 0
Have common true zero point 39
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 Level of Measurement
Property
Nominal Ordinal Interval Ratio
Categorization Y Y Y Y
Order of data is meaningful N Y Y Y
Difference between data values is
meaningful N N Y Y

Zero point represents total

N N N Y
absence

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