Now that you have completed this course in Statistics, please describe a concept

Question

Now that you have completed this course in Statistics, please describe a concept covered in the course that you feel might be of assistance to you now or in the future. For example, using charts and graphs to graphically describe data at your job, or using one of the sampling methods discussed at the beginning of the course to generate sample data. Please be specific in explaining how you would use what you have learned in class to your benefit. MUST BE A NEW ANSWER! NOT ONE ALREADY POSTED!! THANKS

Explanation / Answer

As you have already mentioned about the two topics of graphical data representation and data sampling methods, I will not be describing these. Rather I would describe the concept of inferential statistics.

There are two types of statistics, descriptive and inferential. Descriptive statistics simply describes the sample data without making any predictions about the population parameters, whereas in inferential statistics, we infer( or try to predict) the population parameters from the sample paramaters ( also called as point estimates).

For instance, consider that you are conducting a survey to test the average height of a teenager (male) in USA.

You conduct a survey in which you test the heights of a randomly selected sample of teenaers from your locality(say somewhere near LA), and find out the mean height for this sample as x.

Now, based on this value of x, you want to predict what can be the average height of all the teenaers in USA, because it would not be possible for you to check every teenager's height and then report the mean value. This is where inferential statistics comes in handy.

The point estimate is the term used for the predicted value for the population's parameter.

The point estimate for population mean is the sample mean, and the point estimate for the population Standard deviation is the sample standard deviation( remember that the formula for calculating sample SD is different from that for population SD).

Hope this helps ! Revert back if you have any queries.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse N
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.