Week 1 Lecture 1

Monday, October 2, 2017 3:59 PM

Definitions
• Variable
○ Any characteristic that changes from person to person
○ Question
○ Example: how old are you? Valiable = age
• Category of variable
○ Answer to question from variable
○ Example: 10
○ On a spread sheet:
§ Cases = rows
§ Columns= variables
§ Categories= answers
Age Gender state
Case 1 answer answer answer
Case 2 Answer answer answer
Case 3 answer answer answer
• Population
○ Set of everything
○ "All people" - abstract
○ More finite population - "people in this room" - 1 parameter
• Parameter
○ Answer that we are looking for
○ Number that describes all people/population
○ True for all people
○ Use statistic to guess what parameter is
• Sample
• Statistic
○ Number that describes sample
○ Common, all over the place

Scale of measurement
• Nominal: numbers
• Ordinal : in order
 ○ Number that describes sample
○ Common, all over the place

Scale of measurement
• Nominal: numbers
• Ordinal : in order
• Interval
• Ratio
• How categories relate to each other specifically in amount
• Quantitative: how much of something someone has
○ Cardinal numbers - counting something
§ Interval and ratio
○ Ordinal: measure amount in order
§ Nominal and ordinal
• Qualitative: the quality , no sense of amount