Chapter 1

Lesson Im portance of Sta tistics a nd Som e

Ba sic Term s
1 1.5 hrs

Introduction

The subject that you are presently enrolled is

called Statistics. It is a branch of mathematics that
deals with collection, presentation, analysis and
interpretation of data. Statistics strives to present
data and interpretations in a quantitative form.
There are two branches of Statistics, the
Descriptive and the Inferential Statistics. Descriptive
Statistics are used to describe the basic features of the
data gathered from an experimental study in various ways.
They provide simple summaries about the sample and the
measures. Together with simple graphics analysis, they
form the basis of virtually every quantitative analysis
of data. Inferential statistics or statistical induction
comprises the use of statistics to make inferences
concerning some unknown aspect of a population.

Lesson Objectives:

In this lesson, you are expected to:

1. Explain the importance of statistics to teachers .
2. Define and Differentiate the following terms:
2.1 Population from Sample.
2.2 Parameter from Statistic
2.3 Observation
3. Classify observation as:
3.1 Nominal,
3.2 Ordinal,
3.3 Interval, or
3.4 Ratio.

Think About this

Do you think Statistics is important to you as a

future teacher? Why or Why not?

Try this
On the space provided below, explain why (or why
not) statistics is important to you. You may write

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different instances or situations where you need some
knowledge in statistics to be able to perform your job.

I guess you find Statistics helpful to you in your

future job as a science teacher. If not, try to read the
next section.

Read This
1.1 Importance of Statistics
(by David Lane, http://cnx.org/content/m10182/latest/)

Like most people, you probably feel that it is

important to "take control of your life." But what does
this mean? Partly it means being able to properly
evaluate the data and claims that bombard you every day.
If you cannot distinguish correct from faulty reasoning,
then you are vulnerable to manipulation and to decisions
that are not in your best interest. Statistics provides
tools that you need in order to react intelligently to
information you hear or read. In this sense, statistics
is one of the most important subject matter that you ever
study.
To be more specific, here are some claims that we
have heard on several occasions. (We are not saying that
each one of these claims is true!)
 4 out of 5 dentists recommend Dentyne
 Almost 85% of lung cancers in men and 45% in women
are tobacco-related.
 Condoms are effective 94% of the time.
 Native Americans are significantly more likely to
be hit crossing the streets than are people of
other ethnicities.

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  People tend to be more persuasive when they look
others directly in the eye and speak loudly and
quickly.
 Women make 75 cents to every dollar a man makes
when they work the same job.
 A surprising new study shows that eating egg
whites can increase one's lifespan.
 People predict that it is very unlikely there will
ever be another baseball player with a batting
average over 400.
 There is an 80% chance that in a room full of 30
people that at least two people will share the
same birthday.
 79.48% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

All of these claims are statistical in character.

We suspect that some of them sound familiar; if not, we
bet that you have heard other claims like them. Notice
how diverse the examples are. They come from psychology,
health, law, sports, business, etc. Indeed, data and
data-interpretation show up in discourse from virtually
every facet of contemporary life.

Statistics are often presented in an effort to add

credibility to an argument or advice. You can see this
by paying attention to television advertisements. Many
of the numbers thrown about in this way do not represent
careful statistical analysis. They can be misleading,
and push you into decisions that you might find cause to
regret. For these reasons, learning about statistics is
a long step towards taking control of your life.(It is
not, of course, the only step needed for this purpose.)

Think About this

Since Statistics is a body of knowledge, it has some

terms that have unique meanings. Some of these terms may
sound familiar to you, but its meaning may be different
from the ones you think of.

To check on your prior knowledge, try giving the

meaning of these terms or try using these terms in a
sentence:

a. Observation
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________

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 b. Population
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________

c. Sample
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________

d. Parameter
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________

e. Statistic
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________

Read this

1.2 Basic Terms in Statistics

In Statistics, any recorded information is called
Observation. For example, if you notice that the color of
the paper used in this module is white, then the color
white is an observation. Or if you noticed that the size
of the paper used in this module is 8 ½ by 11 inches,
then the size 8 ½ by 11 inches is another example of an
observation. Observations can be recorded on a piece of
paper or any writing pad, in a tape of a voice or video
recorder, in a computer’s hard disk, or in your memory.
The set of all possible observations is called a
Population. For example, if you wish to record the ages
of all students who are enrolled during the second term
of school year 2008-2009 at Philippine Normal University-
Agusan Campus, then your list of all the ages of these
students is called a Population of ages of PNU-AC
students. Note that the meaning of Population in
statistics is different from its meaning in natural
science. In natural science the term Population refers
to the number or quantity of a given species or things-
for example, the population of Carabaos in the
Philippines. In Statistics, Population is a set or
collection of data – not a quantity describing the number
of a particular species or things.
A subset or a portion of the population is called a
Sample. For example, if you are interested in knowing the
ages of PNU-AC students but you only recorded the ages of

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first year students (and not all students), then your
list or collection of ages is a Sample. Similarly, if
you record only the ages of second year students, your
list is just a sample.

If you are familiar with a Universal set in

mathematics, a Population is similar to a Universal set
while a Sample is analogous to a subset of the Universal
set.
In writing a Population or sample, the usual way of
writing sets can be used. For example, if your
population is the names of all the instructors of PNU-AC
then you may write your population like this

P = {Aberia, Abrea, Balondo, Baylon, Bermiso,

Canda,…,Sarong}

Note: the ellipsis symbol … between Canda and

Sarong is used to denote many more observations
(i.e. names of instructors). The last entry,
Sarong, refers to the last member of the set.

A Parameter is a value that describes the

characteristic of a population. For example, if the
average age of the instructors of PNU-Agusan is 40 years
old, then the value 40 years old is a parameter. On the
other hand, Statistic is a value that describes the
characteristic of a sample. For example, if instead of
getting the average age of all instructors, suppose we
are interested in getting the average age of instructors
handling Sciences. And suppose the average age of these
science instructors is 38 years old, then this value 38
years old is an Statistic. Note that this term Statistic
does not have an s in the last letter. It is singular in
form and singular in meaning. The statistics in the
phrase ―vital statistics‖ is a plural form (As in ―Miss U
has vital statistics of 34, 24, and 34).

1.3 Levels of Measurement (from http://en.w ikipedia.org/w iki/Level_of_m easurem ent)

The level of measurement of a variable in

mathematics and statistics is a classification that is
used to describe the nature of information contained
within numbers assigned to objects and, therefore, within
the variable. The levels were proposed by Stanley Smith
Stevens in his 1946 article On the theory of scales of
measurement. According to Stevens' theory of scales,
different mathematical operations on variables are
possible, depending on the level at which a variable is
measured. In the paper he states "Scales are possible in
the first place only because there is a certain

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isomorphism between what we can do with the aspects of
objects and the properties of the numeral series."

Stevens proposed four levels of measurement, described

below:

 nominal (also categorical or discrete)

 ordinal
 interval
 ratio

Interval and ratio variables are also grouped together

as continuous variables.

In the paper in which Stevens introduced the

classification Scheme, he also proposed the definition
that is widely cited in texts in some version:
"Measurement is the assignment of numbers to objec ts or
events according to a rule". This definition has received
criticism on a number of grounds (e.g. Duncan, 1984;
Michell, 1986, 1999). However, the scheme is widely used.

The levels are in increasing order of mathematical

structure—meaning that more operations and relations are
defined—and the higher levels are required to define some
statistics.

Mathematical
Level Can define… Relation or Operation
structure
standard set structure
nominal mode equality (=)
(unordered)
ordinal median order (<) totally ordered set
subtraction (−) and
interval mean, standard deviation affine line
weighted average
geometric mean, addition (+) and
ratio field
coefficient of variation multiplication (×)

Nominal measurement

In this type of measurement, names are assigned

to objects as labels. This assignment is performed
by evaluating, by some procedure, the similarity of
the to-be-measured instance to each of a set of
named exemplars or category definitions. The name of
the most similar named exemplar or definition in the
set is the "value" assigned by nominal measurement
to the given instance. If two instances have the
same name associated with them, they belong to the
same category, and that is the only significance
that nominal measurements have. Variables that are

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measured only nominally are also called categorical
variables. etc.The corresponding variable can be
called an unordered categorical variable.

Nominal numbers

For practical data processing the names may be

numerals, but in that case the numerical value
of these numerals is irrelevant, and the
concept is now sometimes referred to as nominal
number. The only comparisons that can be made
between variable values are equality and
inequality. There are no "less than" or
"greater than" relations among the classifying
names, nor operations such as addition or
subtraction.

Ordinal measurement

In this classification, the numbers assigned to

objects represent the rank order (1st, 2nd, 3rd
etc.) of the entities measured. The numbers are
called ordinals. The variables are called ordinal
variables or rank variables. Comparisons of greater
and less can be made, in addition to equality and
inequality. However, operations such as conventional
addition and subtraction are still meaningless. The
corresponding variable can be called an ordered
categorical variable.

Examples

Examples include the Mohs scale of mineral

hardness ; the results of a horse race, which
say only which horses arrived first, second,
third, etc. but no time intervals; and many
measurements in psychology and other social
sciences, for example attitudes like
preference, conservatism or prejudice, social
class, and baseball metaphors for sex.

Interval measurement

The numbers assigned to objects have all the

features of ordinal measurements, and in addition
equal differences between measurements represent
equivalent intervals. That is, differences between
arbitrary pairs of measurements can be meaningfully
compared. Operations such as averaging and
subtraction are therefore meaningful, but addition
is not, and a zero point on the scale is arbitrary;

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negative values can be used. The formal mathematical
term is an affine space (in this case an affine
line). Variables measured at the interval level are
called interval variables, or sometimes scaled
variables, as they have a notion of units of
measurement, though the latter usage is not obvious
and is not recommended.

Ratios between numbers on the scale are not

meaningful, so operations such as multiplication and
division cannot be carried out directly. But ratios
of differences can be expressed; for example, one
difference can be twice another.

Examples

Examples of interval measures are the year date

in many calendars, and temperature in Celsius
scale or Fahrenheit scale; temperature in the
Kelvin scale is a ratio measurement, however.

Ratio measurement

A ratio measurement scale is one in which the ratio

between any two measurements is meaningful. To
achieve this a ratio scale has to have a non-
arbitrary zero value. Then operations such as
multiplication and division become meaningful as
well. For a ratio scale one can thus say "This value
is double this other value".

"If it's twice as cold today as it was yesterday,"

runs a popular joke, "and it was zero degrees
yesterday, how cold is it today?" This illustrates
the limitation of interval measurements such as
Celsius and Fahrenheit temperature: by setting zero
at an arbitrary point, they make it impossible to
multiply and divide meaningfully.

Examples

Most physical quantities, such as mass, length

or energy are measured on ratio scales; so is
temperature measured in Kelvin’s, that is,
relative to absolute zero.

Social variables of ratio measure include age,

length of residence in a given place, number of
organizations belonged to or number of church
attendances in a particular time.

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 In a ratio variable, unlike in an interval variable,
the moments about the origin are meaningful, since
the origin is not arbitrary.

The interval and ratio measurement levels are

sometimes collectively called "true measurement",
although it has been argued that this usage reflects
a lack of understanding of the uses of ordinal
measurement. Only ratio or interval scales can
correctly be said to have units of measurement.

Check Your Understanding

Answer the Posttest (i.e. Posttest for Lesson 1)

given at the end of this lesson.