Statistics 101: Understanding Individuals, Variables, and Data Collection - Prof. García M, Apuntes de Negocios Internacionales

¡Descarga Statistics 101: Understanding Individuals, Variables, and Data Collection - Prof. García M y más Apuntes en PDF de Negocios Internacionales solo en Docsity! Week 1- Basic definition of statistics 1. Who? What individuals do the data describe? How many individuals appear in the data? 2. What? How many variables do the data contain? What are the exact definitions of these variables? In what unit of measurement is each variable recorded? Weights, for example, might be recorded in pounds, in thousands of pounds, or in kilograms. 3. Why? What purpose do the data have? Do we hope to answer some specific questions? Do we want answers for just these individuals or for some larger group that these individuals are supposed to represent? Are the individuals and variables suitable for the intended purpose? 1. Definitions Individuals are the objects described by a set of data. Individuals may be people, but they may also be animals or things. A variable is any characteristic of an individual. A variable can take different values for different individuals. - A categorical variable places an individual into one of several groups or categories. Distribution of frequencies within each category - represented by bar digrams and piecharts - A quantitative (numerical) variable takes numerical values for which arithmetic operations such as adding and averaging make sense. The values of a quantitative variable are usually recorded in a unit of measurement such as seconds or kilograms. - represented by histograms and other graphs. - Continuous - Discret Observations or cases the individuals that we observe in our study. Frequency table: Table holding the observation frequency of cases with particular values (discrete) or falling in given range of values (intervals or classes) of a variable.