Unit 1 - Exploring One-Variable Data Flashcards
How can statistics be used to help answer important, real-world questions based on data that vary?
Collect data
Analyze data
Interpret results
Individuals
May be people, animals, or things described by a set of data
Variable
Characteristic that changes from one individual to another
Cateogrial variable
Take values that are category names or labels
Quantitative variable
Takes numerical values for a measured or counted quantity
Not all variables that take numerical values are
quantitative
It is possible to make a quantitative variable categorical by
grouping values
How can we represent categorical data in tabular form
With a frequency table or relative frequency table
How does these tabular representations help us describe categorical data?
Counts & relative frequencies of categorical data reveal information that can be used to justify claims about data in context
Frequency table
gives the number of individuals or counts in each category
Relative frequency table
Gives the proportion or percent of individuals (cases) in each category
How to represent categorical data
Bar chart
Pie chart
Frequency/ relative frequency table
Making bar charts for categorical data
Label axes
Scale axes
Draw bars
Label axes
Variable name on horizontal axis
Frequency/ Relative frequency on vertical axis
Scale axes
Category labels spread out along horizontal axis
Start scaling vertical axis at 0 and go up in equal increments until you equal or exceed maximum frequency or relative frequency
Draw bars
Make the bars equal in width and leave gaps between them
Heights of the bars represent the category frequencies or relative frequencies
Pie charts
Include legend or key to indicate what each part means
Relative frequencies can make it easier to compare
distributions of data with different number of parts
Charts can be made to be based off of whatever variables is
stronger or more supportive of situations
Discrete variable
Usually involves counting
Variable that can take on countable numbers of values with gaps
Example of discrete variable
number of siblings
Continuous variable
Usually involves measuring
Variable that can take on infinitely many values
Example of continuous variable
Height
Dotplot
Shows every single point in a data set
Easy to see shape of distribution
May be difficult to make for large data sets
Stem/ Leaf plot
Shows all points in a data set
Easy to see shape
Histogram
Easier for large data sets
Easy to see shapes
Lose the single point in a data set
4 factors to consider when describing distribution
Shape
Unusual Features
Center
Variability
Shape
Symmetric -> about same data on both sides Skewed left -> more data on high end Skewed right -> more data on low end Unimodal -> one peak Bimodal -> two peak Uniform -> same data across