1. Statistical Questions and Data Free Online FlashCards

What makes a question statistical?

A statistical question anticipates meaningful variability in the data and asks about a group, distribution, typical outcome, proportion, or comparison.

What is a deterministic question?

A deterministic question has one definite answer for the particular situation and does not require studying variation across cases.

What is an observational unit?

An observational unit is the person, object, event, or other entity on which measurements are recorded.

What is a variable in statistics?

A variable is a characteristic recorded for each observational unit that can take different values.

How is a categorical variable defined?

A categorical variable records labels or group membership; arithmetic differences and averages are not inherently meaningful for its values.

How is a quantitative variable defined?

A quantitative variable records numerical amounts for which ordering and differences have meaningful interpretations.

What is a discrete variable?

A discrete variable is a count that usually takes separate, countable values, such as the number of pets or clinic visits.

What is a continuous variable?

A continuous variable is a measurement that can, in principle, take any value within an interval, such as time, height, temperature, or mass.

Why is a student ID not quantitative?

A student identification number is a categorical label, not a quantitative variable, even though it contains digits.

What are primary data?

Primary data are collected by the investigator or research team for the current question, such as through a survey, measurement, observation, or experiment.

What are secondary data?

Secondary data were collected previously, often for another purpose, and are reused for a new analysis.

What does a census attempt to do?

A census attempts to collect information from every member of a defined population.