CHAPTER 1 BASIC STATISTICS CONCEPTS Statistics a science dealing with collecting, analyzing, interpreting and presenting numerical data.

a. Types of statistics: Descriptive numerous calculations that provide concise summary of the information content of the data, describe the data E.g.: numbers of students in the class got an A, average salary of UMSKAL staffs, number of employees on leave in June Inferential estimate the population based on sample, make conclusions on the population from sample taken E.g.: A company produces a new type of shampoo for silky black hair and wants to test whether the shampoo is effective or not, so tests will be done to a small sample of users with black hair. The result from the test will be inference to the larger population of black hair users. Population the total collections of individuals or objects of interest E.g.: all students in UMSKAL, all employees working with Bank Negara, all Proton cars produce in 2010 Parameter descriptive measure of population (census); mean (); variance (); standard deviation (). Sample a portion or part of the population E.g.: HE19 students only, the top level managers only, Gen-2 red color cars only Statistic descriptive measure of sample; mean ( ); variance (s); standards deviation (s) Types of variables: Qualitative non-numerical, categorical characteristics (non-metric) E.g.: gender, religion, occupation, phone number, car color Quantitative indicates how many or how much (metric) Discrete assume only certain values and there are gaps between the values E.g.: no of children, no. of employees Continuous assume any values within a specific range E.g.: weight of the box, your heights, CGPA, age, income

Cross-section data data collected on different elements at the same point of time. E.g.: Charitable giving for six companies in 2007 (same period but different companies)
Company Home Depot Macys Wal-Mart Best Buy Target Lowes 2007 Charitable Givings (in millions) 42 35.2 337.9 31.8 168.9 27.5

Time-series data data collected on the same element for the same variable at different points in time or periods E.g.: Total number of indoor movie screens in Malaysia for the year 2003 to 2008
Year 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Total Indoor Movie Screen 35,361 36,012 37,092 37,776 38,159 38,198

Level of measurement: Nominal lowest level, no particular order, used to classify or categorize, usually in qualitative variable (demographic information), using code to classify E.g.: students identification number, employment classification, types of business Ordinal next higher level, rank or order, qualitative data, Likert scale E.g.: Students can rank their preferences of lecturers with number 1 through 10 Employees can evaluate their job satisfaction by ranking their satisfaction with number 1= totally dissatisfied, 2= dissatisfied, 3= neither dissatisfied nor satisfied, 4= satisfied, 5= totally satisfied Interval next highest level, have meaningful differences between values, data always numerical, have equal intervals, zero does not mean nothing E.g.: temperature, return on investment, dollar change in stock price, size of a dress

Ratio highest level, quantitative data, zero is fixed, can create ratios with data E.g.: height, weight, number of cars sold, production cycle time, can state that 180 pounds is twice as much 90 pounds / 180:90 = 2:1