Statistical Methods and Probability

986 Words2 Pages

According to Chesemore (2011), statistics is concerned with methods based on mathematics theory and probability, which allows the user to summarize many observations concisely. The first recorded use of statistics was in the 16th century; it was used by gamblers and life insurance companies. The use and development of statistical methods has greatly expanded in the 20th century. The invention of the computer simplified calculations (Chesemore, 2011). In addition to learning that statistics is used more often than I thought, I have learned the methods, calculations, the theories behind the formulas, and the requirements for each testing method.
Descriptive statistics is a system which is used to understand large sets of data. Tools include graphs, charts, and histograms. Data is plotted to determine the distribution, but descriptive statistics is limited to measures of central tendency, mean, mode, median, and standard deviation (Weinclaw, 2009). Descriptive statistics is very basic; there is no testing or predicting based on testing the data. It can be used to determine if a sample is normally distributed. The next level of statistics is inferential statistics.
Inferential statistics is much more complex than descriptive statistics and is used for analysis and making inferences based on hypothesis testing to determine statistical significance of calculated values. Inferential statistics uses a vast array of testing procedures. The tests which are used depend on how the test is set up and what the user wants to discover (Weinclaw, 2009).
A simple test to determine if a sample is representative of a population is the z-test. The z-test is heavily used to determine if the sample is representative of a population. After z has been ...

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...let down that the equations needed to pick the winning powerball numbers were not included in the course.

Works Cited

Chesemore, D. (2011). Statistics. Salem Press Encyclopedia of Science. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=89317225&site=eds-live
Tanner, D. E., & Youssef–Morgan, C. M. (2013). Statistics for Managers. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
Wienclaw, R. (2009). Research Starters Sociology (Online Edition). Descriptive Statistics (Sociology). Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=89185422&site=eds-live
Wienclaw, R. (2009). Research Starters Sociology (Online Edition). Inferential Statistics. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=89185545&site=eds-live

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