Activity 1

1. Explain why business organizations use statistical analysis of market

data.
Statistical analysis is fundamental to all experiments that use statistics as
a research methodology. Most experiments in social sciences and many important
experiments in natural science and engineering need statistical analysis. Statistical
analysis is also a very useful tool to get approximate solutions when the actual
process is highly complex or unknown in its true form.
Statistics is the science of collecting, analyzing and making inference from
data. Statistics is a particularly useful branch of mathematics that is not only
studied theoretically by advanced mathematicians but one that is used by
researchers in many fields to organize, analyze, and summarize data. Statistical
methods and analyses are often used to communicate research findings and to
support hypotheses and give credibility to research methodology and
conclusions. It is important for researchers and also consumers of research to
understand statistics so that they can be informed, evaluate the credibility and
usefulness of information, and make appropriate decisions.

2. What is a fad and how does a fad differ from a trend? (100-150 words)
Give five examples of current fads and five examples of current trends to
illustrate your understanding of the difference.
Trends have a much longer lifespan than fads. In fact, they can continue to be
fashionable for years and even decades. The primary difference between a trendand
a fad is that trends have the potential to be long-term influencers on the market.
A fad is any form of behavior that is intensely followed by a population for a short
period of time. The behavior will rise relatively quickly and fall relatively quickly
once the perception of novelty is gone. A trend, on the other hand, gets stronger
over time and does stick around. Trends have identifiable and explainable rises that
are driven by audience needs. They help solve a problem for people.

Activity 2
1. Explain what measures of central tendency and dispersion figures are.
(280-300 words)
2. To what sort of data can measures of central tendency and dispersion
be applied?

In statistics, a central tendency is a central or typical value for a probability

distribution. It may also be called a center or location of the distribution.
Colloquially, measures of central tendency are often called averages. The most
common measures of central tendency are the arithmetic mean, the median and
the mode. A central tendency can be calculated for either a finite set of values or
for a theoretical distribution, such as the normal distribution. The central tendency
of a distribution is typically contrasted with its dispersion or variability; dispersion
and central tendency are the often characterized properties of distributions.
Analysts may judge whether data has a strong or a weak central tendency based on
its dispersion.
The following may be applied to one-dimensional data. Depending on the
circumstances, it may be appropriate to transform the data before calculating a
central tendency. Examples are squaring the values or taking logarithms. Whether a
transformation is appropriate and what it should be depend heavily on the data
being analyzed.

Arithmetic mean

Median

Mode

In statistics, dispersion, also called variability, scatter, or spread, denotes how

stretched or squeezed a distribution is. Common examples of measures of statistical
dispersion are the variance, standard deviation and interquartile range. Dispersion
is contrasted with location or central tendency, and together they are the most used
properties of distributions.
A measure of statistical dispersion is a non-negative real number that is zero if all
the data are the same and increases as the data become more diverse. Most
measures of dispersion have the same units as the quantity being measured. In
other words, if the measurements are in meters or seconds, so is the measure of
dispersion. Such measures of dispersion include:

Sample standard deviation

Interquartile range (IQR)

Range

Mean absolute difference

Median absolute deviation (MAD)

Average absolute deviation

Distance standard deviation

3. What are data correlations and why is it important to identify

correlations? (150 words)