STA 13 Lecture 1: Stat 13: lecture 1
Document Summary
Statistics: study of methods used to learn about the world from data. In biological sciences usual focus is on human data. Cancer registries (track different types of cancer) Methods include random sampling and non-random sampling. A type of experimental study where treatments are randomly assigned to subjects. Need to now sampling methods and experimental design to decide which statistical method to use and how to interpret results. Numbers used to describe some characteristic of the data. Use data to infer something about how things work. Population: a collection of items or individuals we"re interested in. Census: collection of data from every member in population. Sample- a subset of population which is either selected or available for taking measurements. We rarely have a census, so usually need to learn about the population from a sample. Parameter - a numeric description of some characteristic of population. Ex: average (mean), average age, percent males.
