Biology 2244A/B Chapter : Descriptive Statistics

• School: Western University
• Department: Biology
• Course: Biology 2244A/B
• Professor: Ben Rubin

Document Summary

1-2 types of data parameter - a measurement describing some characteristics of a population statistic - a measure describing some characteristic of a sample. Quantitative data (on axis) numbers y consist of numbers representing counts or measurements. Ratio - 0 is meaningful; differences and ratios meaningful. Interval - 0 is arbitrary; like ordinal but differences between values meaningful. Qualitative data (or categorical or attribute) non numerical y can be separated into different categories that are distinguished by some non-numerical characteristic. Ordinal ordered; differences between data values are meaningless. Cvdot: computer viruses destroy or terminate descriptive statistics - objective is to summarize or describe the important characteristics of a set of data inferential statistics - use sample data to make inferences (generalizations) about a population. Visualizing data histogram a bar graph in which the horizontal scale represents classes of data values and the vertical scale represents frequencies (or relative frequencies, or densities).