Elementary stats.

Statistics is an investigative process that involves these steps:

• Formulate questions.

• Collect data needed to answer the questions.

• Describe the data.

• Draw conclusions, using appropriate methods

If we wanted to find out how many freshmen at Belmont have attended at least one basketball game, we could survey some students in the First Year Seminar classes at the end of the semester. Who would be the population?

All freshmen at belmont

People who volunteer an opinion tend to have weaker opinions than is typical of the population.

False

Classify the variable according to the type of data, going to the second level—shoe size:

Quantitative—discrete

Classify the variable according to the type of data, going to the second level—name(s) of a person’s siblings:

Qualitative—nominal

A [BLANK-1] is a study in which the investigator assigns treatments (the procedures applied) to the experimental units at random.

Randomized Experiment

An [BLANK-1] is one in which the assignment to treatment groups is not made by the investigator.

Observational study

A study conducted by a procedure that tends to overestimate or underestimate a population value is said to be:

Biased

People who are asked to participate in a study but refuse to do so are called [BLANK-1].

non-responders

A television newscaster invites viewers to email their opinions about whether the U.S. Congress is doing a good job in handling the economy. More than 100,000 people send in an opinion. Which type of bias is involved?

Voluntary response

The complete group that a researcher wants to study is called the

Population

A survey asks “Do you agree that responsible students should attend every class?”

What is the most likely source of bias?

Leading-question Bias

Selecting every tenth person after choosing a starting point is an example of

Systematic sampling

A numerical value that describes a population is called a

parameter

A university wants to estimate the average number of hours its 8,000 students study each week. It randomly surveys 400 students.

What is the population?

All 8,000 students