Definition of Statistics
Definition of Statistics
Definition of Statistics
Statistics is also the mathematical study of the likelihood and probability of events occurring
based on known quantitative data or a collection of data.
Statistics, thus attempts to infer the properties of a large collection of data from inspection of
a sample of the collection thereby allowing educated guesses to be made with a minimum
of expense.
The descriptive statistics is the type of statistical analysis which helps to describes about the data in some
meaningful way. This statistics is used to describe quantitatively about the important features of the data
or information. The descriptive statistics gives the summaries of the given sample as well as the
observations done. These summaries or descriptions can either be graphical or quantitative.
Inferential Statistics Definition
Inferential statistics is the type of statistics which deals with making conclusions. It inferences about the
predictions for the population. It also analyses the sample. Basically, the inferential statistics is the
procedure of drawing predictions and conclusions about the given data which is subjected to the random
variations. Inferential statistics includes detection and prediction of observational and sampling errors.
This type of statistics is being utilized in order to make estimates and test the hypotheses using given
data.
In case of statistics, the “x-bar” symbol represents the sample mean, and
most other notations differ too.
A quantitative variable is measured numerically. With measurements of quantitative variables you can do things like
add and subtract, and multiply and divide, and get a meaningful result. In the previous example, "Age" was a
quantitative variable.
Qualitative/Categorical variables
These allow for classification based on some characteristic. With measurements of qualitative/categorical variables
you cannot do things like add and subtract, and multiply and divide, and get a meaningful result. In the previous
example, "Gender" was a qualitative/categorical variable. Gender was categorized as either male or female.
The nominal level of measurement is the lowest of the four ways to characterize
data. Nominal means "in name only" and that should help to remember what this
level is all about. Nominal data deals with names, categories, or labels.
The next level is called the ordinal level of measurement. Data at this level can be
ordered, but no differences between the data can be taken that are meaningful
The interval level of measurement deals with data that can be ordered, and in
which differences between the data does make sense. Data at this level does not
have a starting point.
The fourth and highest level of measurement is the ratio level. Data at the ratio
level possess all of the features of the interval level, in addition to a zero value.
Due to the presence of a zero, it now makes sense to compare the ratios of
measurements. Phrases such as "four times" and "twice" are meaningful at the
ratio level.