Introduction to Statistics

To most people the word statistics conjures up images of vast tables of confusing numbers, volumes and volumes of figures pertaining to births, deaths, taxes, populations, and so forth, or figures indicating baseball batting averages or football yardage gained flashing across television screens. This is so because in common usage the word statistics is synonymous with the word data. In a sense this is a reasonably accurate impression because the discipline of statistics deals largely with principles and procedures for collecting, describing, and drawing conclusions from data. Therefore it is appropriate for a text in statistics to start by discussing the nature and scope of statistics. Chapter Two discusses data collection. The purpose of this chapter is to provide the definition of a set of data, define the components of such a data set, present tools that are used to describe a data set, and briefly discuss methods of data collection. Chapter Three presents diagrams, charts and graphs. Chapter Four discusses measure of central tendency. Chapter Five presents measure of dispersion and some practice questions.