STAT 100 Chapter 8: Chapter 8 STATS.docx

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Statistics
• Course: STAT 100
• Professor: Derek Bingham

Document Summary

Planning the production of data through a sample or an experiment does not by itself product numbers. Once we have our sample respondents or our experimental subjects, we must still measure what ever characteristics interest us. Once we have decided what properties we want to measure, we can think about how to do the measurements. We measure a property of a person or thing when we assign a number to represent the property. Use an instrument to make a measurement (units to record the measurements) The result of measurement is a numerical variable that takes different values for people or things that differ in whatever we are measuring. Measurement is the process of turning concepts like length or employment status into precisely defined variables. Height is not a good measure for college readiness. A variable is valid measure of a property if it is relevant or appropriate as a representation of that property.