This document introduces statistics as a scientific discipline devoted to studying data. It defines key statistical concepts such as data, samples, populations, parameters, statistics, descriptive statistics, and inferential statistics. It also discusses the roles of statisticians and different types of statistical research methods like descriptive, correlational, and experimental designs. The introduction emphasizes that statistics is becoming increasingly important for data-driven decision making in various fields.

1. Statistics One
Introduction
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2. Introduction
• Statistics, broadly defined, is a scientific
discipline devoted to the study of data
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3. Introduction
• Data: a collection of numbers assigned as
values to quantitative variables and/or
characters assigned as values to qualitative
variables
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4. Introduction
• Example: Academic records of children in
elementary school
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5. Introduction
Student
TR
CS
PP
DB
MM
AC
…
Gender
M
F
M
M
F
M
Age
(Months)
80
79
84
84
82
83
Math
95
79
75
94
93
91
History
91
75
82
98
78
79
Language
73
87
84
95
78
80
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6. Introduction
• Data: the lowest level of abstraction from
which information and then knowledge are
derived
• Data à Information à Knowledge
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7. Introduction
• Statistician: a person who is skilled in
applying the tools of Statistics
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8. Introduction
• Types of Statisticians
• Academic research
• Medical research
• Survey studies
• Education
• Market research
– Analytics and Big Data
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9. Introduction
• Statistic: a quantity calculated from a
sample of data
• Average Age of students
• Average Math grade
• Standard deviation of Math grade
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10. Introduction
• Sample: a subset of the population
• Population: the entire collection of cases to
which we want to generalize
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11. Introduction
• Statistic: a numerical measure that
describes a characteristic of a sample
• Parameter: a numerical measure that
describes a characteristic of a population
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12. Introduction
• Descriptive statistics: procedures used to
summarize, organize, and simplify data
• Inferential statistics: procedures that allow
for generalizations about population
parameters based on sample statistics
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13. Introduction
• Research methods
• Descriptive
• Correlational
• Experimental
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14. Introduction
• Descriptive
– Organize and summarize the data
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15. Introduction
• Correlational
– Examine relationships among variables
• Is Math grade correlated with History grade?
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16. Introduction
• Experimental
– Randomly assign students to different schedules
• Year-round
• Summer break
• Is achievement affected by schedule?
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17. Introduction
• The International Year of Statistics, 2013!
– For information:
• www.statistics2013.org
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18. Introduction
• “Statistics is becoming more critical as
academia, businesses, and governments
come to rely on data-driven decisions,
greatly expanding the demand for
statisticians.”
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19. END INTRODUCTION
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