INTRODUCTION

By: Norway J. Pangan ChE, MBA, MST, PhD(cand)

 At the end of this chapter, the students are
expected to:
Determine the nature of statistics applicable to a
given situation;
Identify universe, population and variable in a
given situation or problem; and,
Classify the data according to variable type and
appropriate level of measurement.
 It is a collection of quantitative data, such as
statistics of crimes, statistics on enrolment,
statistics on unemployment, and the like.
It is a science which deals with the
collection, presentation, analysis, and
interpretation of quantitative data.
It is a tool that helps us develop general and
meaningful conclusions that go beyond the
original data.
 Surveys are designed to collect early returns on election day
to forecast the outcome of an election.
Consumers are samples to provide information for predicting
product preference.
The research physician conducts experiments to determine
the effect of various drugs and controlled environmental
conditions on humans in order to infer the appropriate
method of treatment of a particular disease.
The engineer samples a product quality characteristics along
with various controllable process variables to assist in locating
important variables related to product quality.
Newly manufactured fuses are sampled before shipping to
decide whether to ship or hold individual lots.
The economist observes various indices of economic health
over a period of time and uses the information to forecast the
condition of the economy next year.
 Statistics can be traced to two areas of
interest: descriptive and inferential
statistics.
DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS deals with the methods
of organizing, summarizing and presenting a
mass of data so as to yield meaningful
information.
INFERENTIAL STATISTICS deals with making
generalizations about a body of data where only
a part of it is examined. This comprises those
methods concerned with the analysis of a subset
of data leading to predictions or inferences
about the entire set of data.
 A bowler wants to find his bowling average for the past 12 games
descriptive statistics
A manager would like to predict based on previous years sales,
the sales performance of a company for the next five years
inferential statistics
A politician would like to estimate, based on an opinion poll, his
chance for winning in the upcoming senatorial election
inferential statistics
A teacher wishes to determine the percentage of students who
passed the examination descriptive statistics
A student wishes to determine the average monthly expenditures
on school supplies for the past five months descriptive statistics
A basketball player wants to estimate his chance of winning the
most valuable player (MVP) award based on his current season
and the averages of his opponents inferential statistics.
 POPULATION is the set of all individuals or entities under
consideration or study. It may be a finite or infinite
collection of objects, events, or individuals, with specified
class or characteristics under consideration.
Example 1: The researcher would like to determine the average
age of patients infected with dengue fever for the month of
October at St. Lukes Quezon City.
Population: The set of all patients in St. Lukes Quezon City
Example 2: The researcher would like to determine the numeber
of female PT students in TUP-Taguig.
Population: The set of all students in TUP-Taguig
Example 3: The department of tropical agriculture is doing study
of pineapples in an experimental field.
Population: The weights of all the pineapples in the field
 VARIABLE is a characteristic of interest
measurable on each and every individual in
the universe.
Types of Variable
Qualitative Variable consists of categories or
attributes, which have non-numerical characteristics.
Examples: classification, year level, sex, gender
Quantitative Variable consists of numbers
representing counts or measurements.
Examples: Age 25 yrs old 10; Gender male - 18
 Classification of Quantitative Variable
DiscreteQuantitative Variable results from
either a finite number of possible values or a
countable number of possible values.
Examples: number of students, number of books, and
number of patients
Continuous Quantitative Variable results from
infinitely many possible values that can be
associated with points on a continuous scale in
such a way that there are no gaps or
interruptions
Examples: height, weight, grade point average, and
time
 SAMPLE is a part of the population or a sub-
collection of elements drawn from a population.
PARAMATER is a numerical measurement
describing some characteristic of a population.
STATISTIC is a numerical measurement
describing some characteristic of a sample.
SURVEY is often conducted to gather opinions
or feedbacks about a variety of topics.
Census Survey most often simply referred to as
census, is conducted by gathering information from
the entire population.
Sampling Survey most often simply referred to as
survey, is conducted by gathering information only
from part of the population.
 Another common way to classify data is to use four levels of
measurement. The level of measurement of data determines the
algebraic operations that can be performed and the statistical tools that
can be applied to the data set. The following are the four levels:
Level 1 - NOMINAL is characterized by data that consist of names, labels, or
categories only. The data cannot be arranged in an ordering scheme.
Examples: name, religion, civil status, address, sex, degree program
Level 2 ORDINAL involves data that may be arranged in some order, but
differences between data values either cannot be determined or are
meaningless.
Examples: military rank, job position, year level
Level 3 INTERVAL is like the ordinal level, with the additional property that
meaningful amounts of differences between data can be determined. However,
there is no inherent or natural zero starting points.
Examples: IQ score, temperature
Level 4 RATIO is the interval level modified to include the inherent zero
starting point. For values at this level, differences and ratios are meaningful.
Examples: height, width, area, weekly allowance