The story of data
Statistics: collect, organise, analyse, interpret and present data.
How tall is your class?
Suppose someone asks: “How tall is your class?” There is no single answer. We must study the heights of all the students.
What is the first job?
What this lesson covers
The idea
Statistics is the study of collecting, organising, analysing, interpreting and presenting data.
How tall is your class?
Suppose someone asks: “How tall is your class?” There is no single answer. We must study the heights of all the students.
What is the first job?
- Collect the heights
- Draw a graph
- Find the mean
Put each job in its place
Studying heights takes five kinds of jobs. Read each card and choose the part of statistics it belongs to.
Five parts of statistics
Data is first collected. Then it is organised, for example in a sorted table. It is analysed to get numbers such as the mean. Then we interpret what the numbers mean, and present the data and our findings, for example in a graph.
Statistics is the study of collecting, organising, analysing, interpreting and presenting data.
- Part | Heights example
- Collect | measure every student
- Organise | a sorted table
- Analyse | mean, median, range
- Interpret | “girls are taller”
- Present | a dot plot
Notes
Statistics is the study of collecting, organising, analysing, interpreting and presenting data.
Check yourself
A student finds the mean height of the class. Which part of statistics is this?
The boys’ mean height is 142.94 cm and the girls’ is 146.9 cm. Meera says, “So the girls are taller on average.” Which part is Meera’s sentence?
Which job is organising the data?
A class collects the heights of 17 boys and 11 girls. How many heights are there to organise altogether?
Answer: 28
17 + 11 = 28 heights.
- Organising. Organising only arranges the data, for example in order. It does not work out new numbers.
- Presenting. Presenting shows the data as a picture or table. Finding the mean is analysing.
- Analysing — correct. Yes! The mean is a new number worked out from the data.
- Analysing. The means were found before. Meera is saying what they tell us.
- Interpreting — correct. Yes! She says what the numbers mean.
- Collecting. Nobody is measuring anyone here. Meera is drawing a conclusion.
- Measure each girl’s height. That is collecting the data.
- Write the 11 girls’ heights in a table from smallest to largest — correct. Yes! The same data, arranged so that it is easy to use.
- Draw a dot plot of the heights. That is presenting the data as a picture.