BUEC 232 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Social Insurance Number, Nonparametric Statistics, Parametric Statistics

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Business Economics
• Course: BUEC 232
• Professor: Andrew Flostrand

Document Summary

Chapter 1: introduction: statistics is an important decision-making tool in business and is used in virtually every area of business. In this text, the word statistics is defined as the science of gathering, analyzing, interpreting, and presenting data: the study of statistics can be subdivided into two main areas: descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics result from gathering data from a body, group, or population and reaching conclusions only about that group. A variable is a characteristic of any entity being studied that is capable of taking on different values. Examples of variables might include monthly household food spending, time between arrivals at a restaurant, and patient satisfaction rating. A measurement is when a standard process is used to assign numbers to particular attributes or characteristics of a variable. Measurements of monthly household food spending might be taken in dollars, time between arrivals might be measured in minutes, and patient satisfaction might be measured using a 5-point scale.