MATH 1040 - Introduction to Statistics

Lesson 1 The Nature of Data

In statistics, we are working with data. Data are a collection of observations.

• (Side-note: A single observation is known as a datum. Multiple observations, or a collection of observations, are known as data)

In Statistics, we are trying to find the best way to collect, analyze, and draw conclusions from data.

Consider the following data table of student exam scores:

Student	Exam 1	Exam 2	Exam 3	Final Exam
A101	97	92	94	90
A053	87	78	89	86
A113	84	86	86	83
A254	73	69	79	72

Each student is considered an observation, depicted by the rows of the table.

Each measurement is known as a variable, depicted by the columns of the table.

In this lesson, we are going to explore what variables are as well as the different types of variables we will deal with through the course.

Topics in this lecture

Below are the subtopics for this lecture:

• 1.1 Variables
• 1.2 Quantitative Variable
• 1.3 Levels of Measurement