STATS 1.1-1.3 Vocabulary

statistics

collecting, organizing, summarizing, and analyzing information to draw conclusions or answer questions

data

fact/proposition used to draw a conclusion or make a decision

population

entire group of individuals to be studied

individual

person/object that’s a member of the population

sample

subset of population that’s being studied

descriptive statistics

numerical summary based on a sample

inferential statistics

takes result from a sample, extends them to the population, and measures the reliability of the result

parameter

numerical study of population

variables

characteristics of individuals within the population

qualitative variables (categorical variables)

classification of individuals based on some attribute/characteristic qu

quantitative variable

numerical measures of individuals

discrete variable

finite number of possible values/a countable number of possible values

continuous variable

infinite number of possible values that are not countable

discrete data

observations corresponding to a discrete variable

continuous data

observations corresponding to a continuous variable

observational study

measures value of response without attempting to influence response/explanatory variables

confounding

occurs in study when effects of two or more variables aren’t separated

lurking variable

explanatory variable that was considered in a study whose effect can’t be distinguished from a second explanatory variable

designed experiment

intentionally manipulates the value of explanatory variables at fixed values and records the value of the response for each individual

cross sectional studies

collect information about individuals at a specific point in time/short period of time

case control studies

retrospective, meaning they require individuals to look back in time/require researchers to look at existing records

cohort studies

first identify a group of individuals to participate, observed over a long period of time

web scraping/data mining

extracting data from the internet

response variable

the variable whose values you’re trying to explain, predict, or understand (y)

explanatory variable

helps explain variability in the response variable (x)

random sampling

process of using chance to select individuals from a population to be included in the sample

frame

list of individuals in the population being studied