Statistical Questions - A statistical question is one for which you don't expect to get a single answer. Instead, you expect to get a variety of different answers, and you are interested in the distribution and tendency of those answers.
For example, "How tall are you?" is not a statistical question. But "How tall are the students in your school?" is a statistical question.
Central Tendency
When the answers to a statistical question are numerical data, we can ask about the central tendency of that data. For example, we might want to know, roughly, "how tall are most people in your school?"
However, this is not a precise question. There are ways of measuring of central tendency using a single number: you can find the mean (or average), the median, or the mode of the data.
Variation
Suppose you know that the average height of a student in a school is 5 feet. You may still be interested in the spread of the data. Is everyone nearly 5 feet tall, say within 2 inches? Or are there also very short and very tall people in the school?
The simplest measure of the variation is the range, calculated by subtracting the lowest value from the highest. More complex measures of variation include the interquartile range and the standard deviation or variance.
Steps to Create a Histogram
Step 1 Count the data.
Step 2 Sort the data from least to greatest.
Step 3 Create a frequency table to place the data in.
Step 4 Find the least and greatest data values and decide on the length of the intervals (all intervals need to be the same).
Step 5 Tally the results or place the data in the correct intervals.
Step 6 Graph the results, with the intervals below the horizontal line and the frequency on the axis.
Step 7 Extra - Find the mean, median, range, and mode.
For example, "How tall are you?" is not a statistical question. But "How tall are the students in your school?" is a statistical question.
Central Tendency
When the answers to a statistical question are numerical data, we can ask about the central tendency of that data. For example, we might want to know, roughly, "how tall are most people in your school?"
However, this is not a precise question. There are ways of measuring of central tendency using a single number: you can find the mean (or average), the median, or the mode of the data.
Variation
Suppose you know that the average height of a student in a school is 5 feet. You may still be interested in the spread of the data. Is everyone nearly 5 feet tall, say within 2 inches? Or are there also very short and very tall people in the school?
The simplest measure of the variation is the range, calculated by subtracting the lowest value from the highest. More complex measures of variation include the interquartile range and the standard deviation or variance.
Steps to Create a Histogram
Step 1 Count the data.
Step 2 Sort the data from least to greatest.
Step 3 Create a frequency table to place the data in.
Step 4 Find the least and greatest data values and decide on the length of the intervals (all intervals need to be the same).
Step 5 Tally the results or place the data in the correct intervals.
Step 6 Graph the results, with the intervals below the horizontal line and the frequency on the axis.
Step 7 Extra - Find the mean, median, range, and mode.