Statistics & Data
Contents
➢ What is statistics?
Meaning
Types
➢ What is data?
Meaning
Type
Measurement
What is Statistics?
✓ Meaning:
✓ Statistics may be defined as the aggregate of facts numerically expressed
according to a reasonable standard of accuracy, collected in a systematic manner,
for a predetermined purpose and placed in relation to each other.
✓ Types :
✓ Statistics can be categorized into two segments i.e. Descriptive statistics and
inferential statistics
Descriptive Statistics
✓ Descriptive statistics mainly deal with the characteristics of the data.
✓ It focus on the properties of the sample and population data based on the central
tendency, variability and spread.
✓ Central tendency of the data is represented by the mean, median, mode etc.
✓ The variability of the data is represented by the standard deviation and variance.
✓ The spread or the distribution of the data is represented by skewness and kurtosis
Inferential Statistics:
✓ Inferential statistics use characteristics of the data to create hypothesis and give
conclusions.
✓ It used to provide conclusions regarding the population based on the
characteristics of the sample drawn from the population and check the reliability of
the conclusions.
✓ Hypothesis testing, regression analysis, logit/ probit regression, ANOVA etc. are
used to infer conclusion regarding the population based on the collected sample.
What is Data?
✓ Meaning:
✓ Data consist of facts, numbers, names, figures or description of information,
collected by observation, measurement or analysis.
✓ Types :
✓ Data can be categorized into qualitative and quantitative data.
Types of Data
✓ Qualitative Data
✓ Qualitative data represents the non-numeric attribute of the object, for example:
colour of a car, performance of students as good or bad etc.
✓ Quantitative Data
✓ Quantitative data represents the numerical information of the object, for example:
the mileage of the car, marks scored by the student in math, etc.
✓ Type of Quantitative Data:
✓ Quantitative data can be discrete or continuous.
Types of Quantitative Data
✓ Discrete data:
✓ Discrete data contain fixed values while continuous data contain a range of values.
✓ Examples of discrete data can be the number of dots in a dice, number of players in
a football team etc.
✓ There are gaps in discrete data as it considers only whole number.
✓ Continuous data:
✓ Continuous data can be represented with decimal numbers, so it does not contain
gaps like discrete data.
✓ Example of continuous data can be the temperature of any day, the height of a
person etc.
Measurement of Data
✓ The measurement of any data or variable can fall into 4 broad categories: nominal
scale, ordinal scale, interval scale and ratio scale.
✓ Nominal scale:
✓ Nominal scale variable takes the information like gender of any person as male or
female or transgender, marital status as married or unmarried etc.
✓ Neither any mathematical operation can be applied, nor the data can be ranked if it
is represented by nominal scale.
Measurement of Data
✓ Ordinal scale:
✓ Ordinal scale data can be ranked in ascending or descending order and devoid of
any further mathematical operation.
✓ An example of ordinal scale data can be grade of any student ranked as A, B, C etc,
or person under any income group like low, medium or high-income group.
✓ Interval scale:
✓ Interval scale data can be ordered and the distance between two data points can
give meaningful information.
✓ For example: the distance between two time 2000-2020 is an interval scale data
which can also be ordered in ascending or descending order.
✓ Ratio scale:
✓ Ratio scale data can be ranked.
✓ The distance and ratio of two data points can also give meaningful information
under ratio scale data.
✓ For example: personal income of group of people, GDP of country over the time etc.
