PS296 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Statistical Inference, Descriptive Statistics, Categorical Variable
Document Summary
Statistics show that the number of people applying for unemployment benefits has fallen for a third month in a row" In reference to the result of some arithmetic or algebraic manipulation applied to data. Important ways that the field of statistics has changed over time: movement toward the meaningfulness of a result, movement toward combining the results of multiple studies, movement away from hand calculation. 1. 3 basic terminology: statistics can be separated into 2 overlapping areas, descriptive statistics = simply describe the set of data at hand. Inferential statistics = use statistics to infer values of parameters: used to draw conclusions about a whole population. Descriptive statistics: purpose is to describe a set of data. Inferential statistics: variability is important (need multiple measurements, major purpose: to draw inferences about parameters from statistics. If not using a random sample, estimates may be meaningless because the sample may not accurately reflect the entire population.
