Ch 1: Introduction to Statistics

Question 1

What are statistics?

Answer 1

refers to a range of techniques and procedures for analyzing, interpreting, displaying, and making decisions based on data; it is the language of science and data; a set of tools that enable us to learn from data; provides us with the tools to characterize uncertainty, to make decisions under uncertainty, and to make predictions whose uncertainty we can quantify; can provide us with evidence, but it is always tentative and subject to the uncertainty that is always present in the real world

Question 2

How to be an intelligent consumer of statistics?

Answer 2

your first reflex must be to question the statistics you encounter.

Question 3

What is statistical thinking?

Answer 3

a way of understanding a complex world by describing it in relatively simple terms that nonetheless capture essential aspects of its structure or function, and that also provide us some idea of how uncertain we are about that knowledge.

Question 4

What are 9 tips for statistics anxiety?

Answer 4

1. learn stress management and relaxation techniques (deep breathing & meditation)
2. combat negative thinking (replace with I know this; I’m prepared; I can do this)
3. visualize yourself succeeding (imagine yourself being relaxed doing math during a test and confidently solving the problems)
4. do “easiest” problems first (so you can relax when doing harder questions)
5. channel your stress into something else (run before a test or use stress ball during test)
6. start preparing early (do not cram)
7. take care of yourself (eat and sleep well)
8. try to understand the “why” of statistical concepts rather than memorizing them (if you understand the reason behind the rules, you will remember the concepts better and be able to apply them in different problems)
9. reward yourself for hard work (take a break after difficult assignment or exam)

Question 5

What are descriptive statistics?

Answer 5

statistics that are used to organize and summarize the information so that the researcher can see what happened during the research study and can also communicate the results to others

Question 6

What are inferential statistics?

Answer 6

statistics that help the researcher to answer the general research question by determining exactly what the conclusions are justified based on the results that were obtained

Question 7

What is the idea of sampling?

Answer 7

that we can summarize an entire population based on just a small number of samples from the population, as long as those samples are obtained in the right way