Statistics Definitions

University:
Bradley University
Course:
MTH 325 | Probability and Statistics I
Academic year:

2022
Views:

46

Pages:

2
Author:

emplanasf3fe

KEY TERMS & DEFINITIONS POPULATION - A collection of persons, things, or objects under study. SAMPLE - To study the population, we select a sample. Sampling selects a portion, or subset, of the larger population and studies that portion—the sample—to gain information about the population. STATISTIC - A number that represents a property of the sample. For example, if we consider one physics class as a sample of the population of all physics classes, then the average number of points earned by students in that one physics class at the end of the term is an example of a statistic. PARAMETER - A numerical characteristic of the whole population that can be estimated by a statistic. (e.x. Since we considered all physics classes to be the population, then the average number of points earned per student over all the physics classes is an example of a parameter). VARIABLE - Usually notated by letters such as X and Y, it’s a characteristic or measurement that can be determined in relation to each member of a population. Variables may describe values like weight in kilograms or favorite academic subject. NUMERICAL VARIABLES - Values with equal units such as weight in pounds and time in hours. CATEGORICAL VARIABLES - Places the person/ thing into a category. MEAN - The "average" you're used to, where you add up all the numbers and then divide by the number of numbers. MEDIAN - The middle value in the list of numbers. PROPORTION - A special type of ratio in which the denominator includes the numerator. For example, the proportion of deaths that occurred to males which would be deaths to males divided by deaths of both males and females. DATUM - One item of information, one fact, one statistic on its own. More commonly known as “data”