SOCI 3030 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Likert Scale, Statistical Inference, Language Of Mathematics
21 Nov 2017
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Stats lecture 2 basic statistical concepts september 21st/2016 chapter 1. The most basic thing about statistics is looking for patterns amongst numbers and people. In order to do this, (cid:449)e (cid:374)eed to talk a(cid:271)out ho(cid:449) (cid:449)e(cid:859)(cid:396)e goi(cid:374)g to o(cid:396)ga(cid:374)ize a(cid:374)d (cid:272)olle(cid:272)t these numbers. The most basic concept: variables: a variable is a characteristic of an individual or a group of things that can be observed, changes from one individual to the next. For example: income, age, course grades, eye colour Most individual things in the universe are different from other things in the universe, specifically from different groups of people that you are interested in studying. Individual: not always referring to a single human. Individuals are the unit that we are studying. Each student is an individual, each country could be an individual in a study in comparative politics, or different cities could be individuals in policy study. Different classes being studied or compared to could be individuals as well.
