Chapter 1 - Introduction to the Practice of Statistics

September 12, 2013

DO NOW
Please get a Statistics book and fill in the information in the book receipt. Hand it in to Ms. Boyd.

AIM AND HOMEWORK

Aim: How do we: 1) Define statistics. 2) Understand the process of statistics. 3) Distinguish between qualitative and quantitative variables. 4) Distinguish between discrete and continuous variables. Homework: Contract due today! Quiz 1 due Sunday.

Supplies due Monday.

WHAT IS STATISTICS?
The science of collecting, organizing, summarizing, and analyzing information in order to draw conclusions.
The methods of statistics follow a process.

THE PROCESS OF STATISTICS

1)

Identify the research objective:

Finding a question means studying a group of people called a population. Within the population there will be individuals. Example: Studying a population of Mercedes Benz automobiles and the individual can be one of those cars.

THE PROCESS OF STATISTICS

2) Collect the information needed to answer the question:
Since we often do not have access to the whole population, we will select a subset or sample. Example: Conducting a poll on a national election in the US, there are over 210 million people, but samples often consist of 1,100.

THE PROCESS OF STATISTICS

3) Organize and summarize information.

Descriptive statistics takes the information collected and puts it into charts, graphs, and tables in order to provide an overview of the information.

THE PROCESS OF STATISTICS

4) Draw conclusions from the information.
Inferential statistics uses methods that generalize results obtained from a sample to the population and measure their reliability. Example: Results from the sample of 18 year olds are generalized on the population. There is always uncertainty in this, so statisticians must report a level of confidence in their conclusions.

GUIDED PRACTICE # 25

Directions:
(a)Identify a research objective

(b)Identify the sample

(c)List the descriptive statistics (d)State the conclusions made in the study

Is Brain Volume Associated With Schizophrenia? A study conducted by researchers was designed to determine the genetic and non-genetic factors to structural brain abnormalities on schizophrenia. The researchers determined the brain volume of 29 twins who were patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and compared them to the brain volumes of 29 healthy twins. Based upon a high resolution MRI, it was determined that the whole brain volumes were 2.2% smaller in the schizophrenia patients. The researchers concluded that an increased genetic risk to develop schizophrenia is related to reduced brain growth in early life.

GUIDED PRACTICE #25

Directions:
(a) Identify a research objective: To determine the genetic and non-genetic factors of structural brain abnormalities on schizophrenia.

(b) Identify the sample: The 58 twins in the study

(c) List the descriptive statistics: Whole brain volumes were 2.2% smaller in schizophrenic patients. (d) State the conclusions made in the study; An increased genetic risk to develop schizophrenia is related to reduced brain growth in early life.

TYPES OF DATA

Variables are characteristics of individuals within the population.

Example: Studying the hair color or height of various high school students.

TYPES OF DATA
Qualitative or categorical variables allow for classification of individuals based on characteristic or attribute. Ex: hair color.
Quantitative variables provide numerical measures of individuals. Arithmetic provides meaningful results. Ex: height.

GUIDED PRACTICE EXAMPLE 2

Qualitative or quantitative variables?
(A)Gender (B)Temperature (C)Number of days during the past week a college study aged 21 years or older has had at least one drink (D)Zip code

GUIDED PRACTICE - #3 and #4

Is weight of cars a quantitative or qualitative variable? Why?
What about religious affiliation? Why?

GUIDED PRACTICE - #3 and #4

Is weight of cars a quantitative or qualitative variable? Why?
quantitative What about religious affiliation? Why? qualitative

TYPES OF DATA
Discrete variable has either a finite number of possible values or a countable number (0,1,2,3) of possible values.
Example: the number of heads after flipping a coin five times, the number of cars that go through McDonalds drive through between 12pm and 1am. Continuous variable is a quantitative variable that has an infinite number of possible outcomes that are not countable. They are often rounded. The distance a car can travel on a full tank of gas. It is continuous.

GUIDED PRACTICE #13 and #14

Is this data discrete or continuous?

- Strength of concrete in pounds per square inch - Number of typos in a 500 page novel

GUIDED PRACTICE #13 and #14

Is this data discrete or continuous?
- Strength of concrete in pounds per square inch

- continuous
- Number of typos in a 500 page novel

- discrete

INDEPENDENT PRACTICE
Pick three and answer with your group.

1)Define statistics and list the requirement of the statistical process.

2) Explain the difference between a population and a sample. 3)Explain the difference between descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. 4)What does it mean when an experiment is double blind? 5)Define qualitative variable. Provide some examples. Define quantitative variable. Provide some examples. 6) Discuss the difference between discrete and continuous variables.

CONCLUSION
What did we learn today about statistics?