This learning packet should review:
• New terms and definitions
• Provide examples of each term
• Show how the terms relate to each other
This packet introduces you to new terms commonly used in statistics, including variable, data, quantitative data, discrete and continuous data, qualitiative data, experiment, parameter, and statistic. You will be able to see defintions, as well as examples, of all of these terms. I will also show how these terms are interrelated, and thus quite important.
This is a list of all of the terms covered in this packet. Definitions and examples will be provided in the powerpoint below.
Source: Greene
Which of the following variables is qualitative, and which is quantitative?
Height of a tree
Color of a tree
Age of a tree
Number of leaves on a tree
Type of tree
Uses of trees
Width of a leaf on a tree
Qualitiative: Color of a tree, type of tree, uses of a tree. These are all non-numeric variables.
Quantitative: Height of a tree, age of a tree, number of leaves on a tree, width of a leaf on a tree. All of these variables can be written out as numbers.
Source: Greene
All of the following are quantitative variables. But can you decide which ones are discrete, and which are continuous?
Diameter of a baseball
Weight of a baseball
Number of pitches in an at-bat in a baseball game
Number of players on a baseball team
Length of a baseball game
How many home runs were hit in a game
Length of a baseball bat
Discrete: Number of pitches in an at-bat in a baseball game, number of players on a baseball team, how many home runs were hit in a game. All of these can be counted out individually (one home run, two home runs, three home runs, etc)
Continuous: Diameter of a baseball, weight of a baseball, length of a baseball game, length of a baseball bat. These are all measurements, which is the most common continuous variable. The length of a game, for example, doesn't have to be 3 hours. We can get very specific, such as 2 hours, 58 minutes, 23.38474 seconds. And we can get more specific yet. It is not countable.
Source: Greene
