Chapter Objectives

  • Recognize and differentiate between key terms.
  • Apply various types of sampling methods to data collection.
  • Create and interpret frequency tables.

Assignment

Some advice

  • These slides are available through Canvas (or my site)
  • Don’t copy the slides
  • Write down key ideas with a pen or pencil
  • At the end, summarize what we covered with a pen or pencil

Intro

  • The science of statistics deals with the collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data
  • Descriptive statistics: organizing and summarizing data
  • Inferential statistics: drawing conclusions from “good” data and procedures
  • “Good” is essential and should also extend to communicating those conclusions
  • Bad statistics can have terrible consequences

Statistical Models

  • Mathematical models describe real world phenomena
  • Used only when values can be determined precisely
  • Statistical models are used when precision is not available
  • Mathematic functions still used, but instead to predict the likelihood of an event

Probability

  • Mathematical tool used to study randomness
  • Will look at this later in the course
  • For now, determining the probability of rolling a 7 on a pair of dice is simple
  • Determining the probability of someone being affected by a drug’s side-effect is insanely hard
  • Need to rely on statistics and experiments, and those are used to generate probabilities and predictions

Some Key Terms

  • Some of the terms you need to be familiar with
  • A population is the group you want to study
  • A sample is the group you can actually study, chosen through sampling
  • Variables are characteristics or measurements, and can be numerical or categorical