CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION TO STATISTICS
Statistics

 1:

a branch of mathematics dealing with the collection,

analysis, interpretation, and presentation of masses of
numerical data

 2:

a collection of quantitative data

main branches of statistics

1-descriptive statistics
2- inferential statistics.
Both of these are employed in scientific analysis of data and both are
equally important for the student of statistics.
Descriptive statistics

Descriptive statistics that involves the organization,

summarization, and display of data. Descriptive statistics are
typically presented graphically, in tabular form (in tables),
or as summary statistics (single values).
Inferential statistics

Inferential statistics are used to interpret the

meaning of descriptive statistics. Inferential
statistics are procedures used that allow researchers
to infer or generalize observations made with
samples to the larger population from which they
were selected.
Basic Terms and
Concepts
Data
Data consist of information coming from observation e.g. counts,
measurements, or responses.
Variable
A variable is a characteristic (or an attribute) that describes a person, place,
thing, or idea.
The value of the variable “varies” from one entity to another.
Variable are generally expressed by X, Y , Z and their values/realizations by xi,
yi, zi with subscript “i” denoting the ith object/item for which the observation
is made. More clearly, xi is simply the ith observation on X.
Types of variables
Quantitative variable: A variable is called a quantitative when a characteristic
can be expressed numerically such as temperature, time, weight, number of
students in classes etc.
Qualitative variable: A variable is called a qualitative when a characteristic
can be expressed only with different categories such as eye color (blue, brown,
black), education (BA, MA, MS), survey response (yes, no, agree, disagree) etc.
 Types of quantitative
variables
Discrete Variables:
Discrete variables vary only by whole numbers or integers (e.g. 1, 2,3,...,). A
discrete variable represents count data; such as the number of students in a class
(it would not make sense to have half a student, would it?) and the number of
defected mobiles in a lot.

Continuous Variables:
A quantitative variable is continuous if its possible values come from a given
interval (e.g. 10.0, 1.2, 87.2). A continuous variable represents measurement data
such as the temperature, weight, length.
 Population and samples
Population:
A population is the collection of all observations (outcomes, responses,
measurements, or counts) that have some characteristic of interest. The total number
of observations in a population is called its size; generally denoted by ‘N’.
Samples:
A sample is a subset of a population. Its size is denoted by ‘n’.
If the desired information is available for all items in the population, we have what is
referred to as a census. In practice, we rarely have a complete set of data. We usually
collect data in samples.
The numbers used to describe a population are parameters and often are denoted
using Greek letters (µ, σ).
Whereas the numbers used to describe a sample data set are called statistics often
denoted by Greek letters with “ ˆ ” over them (ˆ µ, ˆ σ) or English letters ( ¯ X, S).
A statistic may be used to estimate a population parameter such as the average of a
data set, e.g. ¯ X or ˆ µ provides an estimate of the unknown population mean, µ.