8/2/2019 Stats Intro + Learning Objectives

1/2

Descriptive Statisctics

Torture numbers and they'll confess to anything.~Gregg Easterbrook

The study of statistics blends the rigor, calculations

and deductive thinking of mathematics, the real-world

examples and problems of the social sciences, the

decision-making needs of business and medicine and thelaboratory method and experimental procedures of the

natural sciences.

- The College Board, Advanced Placement Program,

Teachers Guide AP

Statistics

Statistics can be made to prove anything - even the truth. ~AuthorUnknown

Among leaders of industry, business, government and

education, almost everyone agrees that some knowledge ofstatistics is necessary to be an informed citizen or a

productive worker. Numbers are regularly used and

misused to justify opinions on public policy.

Quantitative information is the basis for decision-

making in virtually every job within business and

industry. Many academic programs at the college level

include statistics as a requirement.

- The College Board, Advanced Placement Program,

Teachers Guide AP Statistics

While the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he

becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, neverforetell what any one man will be up to, but you can say with precision

what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but

percentages remain constant. So says the statistician.

~Arthur Conan Doyle

The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.

~Joe Stalin, comment to Churchill at Potsdam, 1945

Shemay look at it because it has picturesThis is what Florence Nightingale said about a book of statistics that she

had sent to Queen Victoria

Education is what survives when what has been learned has beenforgotten.B. F. Skinner

In ten years time you might have forgotten, for example, how the standard deviation of a set of data iscalculated, but in everything you study at school there is some important understanding that canendure.please keep the following essential questions in mind and think about them as you work through thisunit. You will be given a short writing assignment to do at the end of the unit, based on one of these questions(your choice).

Guiding Question - How does statistics impact positively on our lives?

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics (Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881,

British Prime Minister). This is a very famous and controversial quote. Why can he say this?

If youre not statistically-literate, youre vulnerable to manipulation by governments, corporations

and the media. How could you defend or oppose this statement?

8/2/2019 Stats Intro + Learning Objectives

2/2

Learning Outcomes for this Unit

This is what youre expected to know, understand and be able to do by the end of this unit. Think about what

youve already learned and tick boxes in the confidence log below to help you judge what you need to focus

on in this unit (maybe everything, thats ok).

Learning outcome Veryconfident

Confident but

need to review it

Not

confident

Explains the concepts of population and sample

Identifies qualitative and quantitative data

Interprets frequency tables (grouped and ungrouped)

Constructs frequency tables (grouped and ungrouped)

Uses the terms mid-interval value, class/interval width,

upper and lower class/interval boundaries

Interprets frequency histograms

Constructs frequency histograms

Interprets cumulative frequency graphs

Uses the terms quartiles to describe the distribution of a

data set

Uses a cumulative frequency graph to find quartiles, and

median

Finds and interprets these measures of central tendency:

mean, median and mode (from a raw data set, a grouped or

ungrouped frequency table or histogram)

Finds and interprets these measures of dispersion: range,

inter-quartile range, (from a raw data set, a table or

cumulative frequency curve)

Interprets box and whisker plots

Constructs box and whisker plots

Calculates standard deviation from the GDC and interprets

its meaning.

Uses the TI83 calculator to produce the statistical diagrams

and measures mentioned above