Notes

What is Statistics? Statistics is the science concerned with developing and studying methods for collecting, analyzing, interpreting and presenting empirical data. Statistics is a highly interdisciplinary field; research in statistics finds applicability in virtually all scientific fields and research questions in the various scientific fields motivate the development of new statistical methods and theory. In developing methods and studying the theory that underlies the methods statisticians draw on a variety of mathematical and computational tools.

What is the importance of statistics? Importance of studying statistics
Statistics is used in almost all fields such as education, business, government, sports,
health, and science and technology. For example, in basketball, after each quarter, some
information is flashed or announced. They call it the statistics of the game which includes the
number of points made by each player in both teams, number of assists, rebounds, individual
and team fouls. In public health, the government health agency may give the public on the
updates of the number of people affected by the covid-19. They may use this to educate
people about the virus. In education, a researcher might want to know the effectivity of new
methods of teaching in the K-12 curriculum.

Also, statistics can be used as a tool to make decisions based on controlled
experiments, quality control, estimation, and prediction. Since we are exposed to many pieces
of numerical information we usually watch or hear in television, newspaper, and social media.
You will need to know how to interpret these data, when to believe or when to reject them.

How about Data? Data are individual pieces of factual information recorded and used for the purpose of analysis. It is the raw information from which statistics are created. Statistics are the results of data analysis - its interpretation and presentation. In other words some computation has taken place that provides some understanding of what the data means.

Well, do any of you know what Population is? Or Sample? How about Research?
In ordinary usage, a population is a distinct group of individuals with shared citizenship, identity, or characteristic. In statistics and quantitative research methodology, a sample is a set of individuals or objects collected or selected from a statistical population by a defined procedure. Research in statistics finds applicability in virtually all scientific fields and research questions in the various scientific fields motivate the development of new statistical methods and theory.

Let's move to the statistical questions, Statistical questions are questions answered using collection of data which vary depending on a situation. These questions have more than one possible answer, and will usually ask data from a multiple of people, events, or things.

There are two branches of statistics: Descriptive statistics and Inferential statistics.
Descriptive statistics consists of the collection, organization, summarization,
and presentation of data.
Descriptive statistics consists of the collection, organization, summarization,
and presentation of data.
Inferential statistics consists of generalizing from samples to populations,
performing estimations and hypothesis tests, determining relationships among
variables, and making predictions.

Lastly, why study statistics? The first reason is to be able to effectively conduct research. Without
the use of statistics it would be very difficult to make decisions based on
the data collected from a research project. Without statistics we have no way of making an educated decision between the two possibilities. Statistics, however, provides us
with a tool to make an educated decision. We will be able to decide
which of the two possibilities is more likely to be true. We will base this
decision on our knowledge of probability and inferential statistics. Secondly, more
and more work places are conducting internal research or are becoming
part of broader research studies. Thus, you may find yourself assigned
to one of these studies. Finally, many classes on the undergraduate
level may require you to conduct research (for example, a research
methods or experimental psychology course). In each of these
instances, a knowledge of measurements and statistics will be
invaluable. The third reason is to further develop critical and analytic thinking skills.
Most students completing high school and introductory undergraduate
coursework have at their disposal a variety of critical thinking and
analytic skills. The study of statistics will serve to enhance and further
develop these skills. To do well in statistics one must develop and use
formal logical thinking abilities that are both high level and creative. To summarize, the reasons to study statistics are to be able to
effectively conduct research, to be able to read and evaluate journal
articles, to further develop critical thinking and analytic skills, to act a an
informed consumer, and to know when you need to hire outside
statistical help.