Basic Statistical Jargon

Basic Statistical Jargon

1. Data

   • Numerical data
     • (quantitative data)
     • Discrete data
       • represent items that can be counted
     • Continuous data
       • represent measurements; the value cannot be counted and can only be described using intervals on the real number line.
   • Categorical data
     • represent characteristics such as a person's gender, marital status, hometown, or the types of movies they like. Categorical data can take on numberical values (such as "1" indicating male and "2" indicating female)
     • Ordinal
     • Characteristic

2. Data set

3. Variable

4. Population

   • The group of individuals you want to study in order to answer your research question is called a population. - hard to define e.g whether the babies sleep better with music. how to define 'baby' ? Under three years old? Only in US or US vs Australia vs Africa?

5. Sample

   • Random
     • Good sample - random number generators in this process, the items in the sample are chosen using a computer-generated list of random numbers, where each sample of items has the same chance of being selected.
   • Non-random
     • Bad sample - the samples were selected in such a way that some type of favoritism and/or automatic exclusion of a part of the population was involved. 

6. Statistic

   • is a number that summarizes the data collected from a sample. The type of statistic calculated depends on the type of data.
   • Percentages
     • data type: categorical
   • average
     • Numerical
   • Median
     • Numerical
   • Percentile

7. Parameter

8. Bias

   • Inthe way data are collected
   • Inthe way the sample is selected