Intro to Stats Terms

data

any information that we collect from the people involved in our study

population

the entire or complete group of people, items, etc that we are interested in studying

sample

a smaller subset of a population

parameter

a measurement that describes a fact or characteristic of a population

statistic

a measurement that describes a fact or characteristic of a sample

qualitative variables

used to separate data into different categories that are distinguishable by some non-numeric characteristic

• used to classify or organize (people, items into groups)

• aka categorical variables

quantitative variables

variables that take numerical values for which arithmetic operations such as adding and averaging make sense

examples of qualitative variables

• ethnicity

• hair color

• political party affiliation

examples of quantitative variables

• height

• weight

• age

discrete variable

a variable characterized by gaps or interruptions in the values that it can assume

what are discrete variables restricted to

a set of values that possess gaps (values that are finite and countable → cannot admit 4.78 people to a hospital)

examples of discrete variables

• number of daily admissions to a local hospital

• number of touchdown passes

continuous variable

a variable that can take on any value in a specified interval, there are no gaps

examples of a continuous variable

• amount of daily rainfall

• gallons of gas pumped